Uber Friendlee

missdelite.tumblr

2011-08-17T23:49:00.003-04:00

The saga continues...

Alecto

2011-08-10T23:28:00.008-04:00

"UNCEASING"
Excerpt: What Japan's Youth Are Really Like (04.2006) [ForeignDispatches.typepad]

In a four country poll involving America, China, Japan and Korea, Japanese high school students came dead last in the emphasis they placed on academic achievement, while "being the most popular person in school" came first in their list of priorities; their chief expressed interests lay in consuming popular culture (TV dramas, manga), chatting on their mobile phones and fashion/shopping, in that order. [...]

The Hakuhodo Institute of Life and Living says boys no longer dream of becoming salarymen like their fathers, and that there is no "guaranteed path to contentment". [...]

Aino

2011-08-09T23:01:00.011-04:00

"THE ONLY ONE"

DAPHNE GUINNESS

50 Graffiti

Freida Pinto

Best Hip Hop Videos
College Inc.

Althea

2011-07-27T21:14:00.012-04:00

"HEALING"

Asian Male Models

Asian Models

Solestruck

Casey Anthony Gets Job Offers
Wendi's No Tinkerbell
Hispanics Hit Hardest By Recession

Agni

2011-07-22T13:08:00.007-04:00

"FIRE"
Lazerian

The Best Free Art In NYC

Fashion Distraction

Best Of The Style Blogs
StyleCaster

NICHOLE DE CARLE

Sunscreen: Does It Have Anti-Aging Properties?
SPF – Sun Protection Factor. Everyone who’s ever used sunblock probably knows this term, but don’t know much about exactly what it does. It basically protects the skin from UVB light emitted by the sun. UVB light causes sunburn, redness on the skin. If a sunblock has a high SPF, you can probably avoid getting red and puffy by using it.

UVA – Less widely known but also emitted by the sun. This light doesn’t cause visible damage to the skin but can cause skin cancer with pro-longed exposure. This also causes the skin DNA to change, darken, and tan. The only ingredients that protects against UVA light are titanium dioxide and zinc oxide.

Amice

2011-07-20T21:27:00.010-04:00

"FRIEND"

David Koma

FASHION RETAIL
The Corner
Not Just A Label

Europe's First Ever Music Hotel

The Five Biggest Myths About "Natural" Meats
1. Buying "Natural" Meats Reduces Your Exposure to Hormones and Antibiotics > Myth
2. Grass-Fed Meats May be Healthier for You than Conventional Meats > Truth
3. Buying USDA-Certified Organic Meat is Good for the Environment > Truth
4. “Certified Humane” is the Same Thing as USDA-Certified Organic > Myth
5. Buying Organic Chicken is a Good Way to Minimize Your Exposure to Unnecessary Hormones > Myth

8 Genetically Engineered Foods to Watch For
Tomatoes, Soybeans, Corn, Canola, Sugar Beets, Golden Rice, Pigs, Apples

8 Key Nutrients Vegetarians Need
Calcium, Iodine, Iron, Omega-3 Fatty Acids, Protein, Vitamin B12, Vitamin D, Zinc

Fish And Shellfish: 6 To Eat, 6 To Avoid
"Super Green": Albacore Tuna, Mussels & Oysters, Pink Shrimp, Rainbow Trout, Salmon (wild), Sardines
Threatened: Bluefin Tuna, Chilean Sea Bass, Groupers, Monkfish, Orange Roughy, Salmon (farmed)

MUSIC
Hypnotize U
Look At Me Now
Uprising

Agapito

2011-07-17T22:39:00.010-04:00

"BELOVED"

KITCHEN NIGHTMARES, vol.3

LINK
But here’s a contradictory thought to confuse you: Sometimes, a restaurant isn’t about the glitz and glamour. They’re not trying to wow you with decor and fine linens. They’re in the business of food. Sometimes the best restaurant is the one with the plastic tables and the old guy behind the range workin’ the line alone.

THE PRIVATE LIFE OF BRADLEY MANNING
The early years of the young soldier now accused of leaking more than half a million classified U.S. government documents.

It's The Inequality, Stupid
"It's the age of neo-feudalism, and if you're lucky, the lord of your manor will believe that his serfs will work better and be more loyal if they have full stomachs and are well rested."

6 REAL Reasons You Didn't Get The Job
1. None Of Us Liked You
2. You’re Not Attractive Enough
3. You’re Much Too Attractive
4. We Hired The Vice-President’s Brother-In-Law Instead
5. We Intended To Hire An Insider All Along
6. We Found Someone Who’ll Let Us Exploit Them

Adrastos

2011-07-14T11:30:00.007-04:00

"NOT INCLINED TO RUN AWAY"
Water Taxi Of The Future

South Korea To Withdraw Printed Textbooks By 2015
"This idea could mean that students will not be reading old and obsolete materials. It could mean that student networks will create new ways of working together and completing projects...and that these projects might be more than homework. The projects could help solve real-world problems. Korean children could be working to improve their society and culture. It is great to see countries take good ideas and run with them."

MIT Unveils Paper Solar Cells
Spray Can Foam & Gels Cool Down Japan
Energy Efficient Motion Sensor Streetlights

Amala

2011-07-13T10:56:00.007-04:00

"CLEAN, PURE"
Why I Quit My Job
I have serious problems with the direction taken by Canadian policy and politics in the last five years. But as a reporter, I feel like I’ve been holding my breath. Every question I asked, every tweet I posted, and even what I said to other journalists and friends had to go through a filter, where my own opinions and values were carefully strained out. Even then I’m not sure I was always successful, but I always knew at the CBC and subsequently at CTV that there were serious consequences for editorial. Within the terms of my employment at CTV, there was a clause in which the corporation (now Bellmedia) literally took ownership of my intellectual property output. If I invented a better mouse trap, they owned the patent. If I wrote a novel, they got a cut. Rhymes on the back of a napkin? Bellmedia is hip to the jive, yo. And if I ever said anything out of line with my position as an “objective” TV reporter, they had grounds to fire me. I had a sinking feeling when I first read that clause, but I signed because I was 23 and I wanted the job. Now I want my opinions back. [...]

What I need is to better myself spiritually, physically, and intellectually, so I can effect meaningful change in the world around me. I don’t know yet where this impulse will take me, but I know I can’t go back to working parallel to the real problems, hiding my opinions and yet somehow hoping that one viewer every night might piece together what I wanted to say. I thought if I paid my dues and worked my way up through the ranks, I could maybe reach a position of enough influence and credibility that I could say what I truly feel. I’ve realized there’s no time to wait. [...]

Five Reasons Why Detoxifying Swiss Chard Is One Of The Healthiest Greens
[Chatelaine – Jul 11, 2011]

The Mediterranean diet is one of the world's healthiest, thanks in part to the amount of green vegetables it contains including Swiss chard. Red, pink, purple, yellow and white chard are close relatives of beet greens.

When you compare foods calorie for calorie, Swiss chard is a nutritional powerhouse: it has more vitamin A than squash, more vitamin C than citrus and more vitamin E than avocado! Chard also provides essential alkaline minerals, which are needed to balance acid-forming foods such as animal products.

Here are five more reasons to pick up Swiss chard at the farmers' market:

1. Swiss chard can help lower cholesterol: Swiss chard contains betalains, which are also found in beets. Betalains are well known to have powerful antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and detoxification properties, but there is also current research that indicates these leafy greens can actually lower LDL cholesterol levels.

2. It's a natural anti-inflammatory: Swiss chard contains high amounts of vitamin K, which reduces cytokines, the chemicals your body releases when it is in a state of inflammation.

3. This green can help prevent hypothyroidism: One cup of Swiss chard contains over 100 percent of your daily requirements of vitamin A. Vitamin A aids in the prevention and treatment of hypothyroidism by improving the rate of iodine absorption. Iodine is necessary for the creation of thyroid hormones and the maintenance of a healthy metabolism.

4. Boost your magnesium with Swiss chard: Magnesium is used as a preventative measure for chronic asthma and has been shown to reduce hospital visits for asthma attacks. Maintaining adequate magnesium can also prevent the onset of headaches and help your body manage stress better.

5. Swiss chard supports healthy liver function: Swiss chard contains a flavonoid called syringic acid, which prevents liver degeneration and lowers liver enzymes in the blood. This makes Swiss chard the perfect tonic after a night of indulgence or have it every day to improve overall liver function!

Swiss Chard Dolmades
This recipe is an adaption of Ezra Title's version, from our show Healthy Gourmet .

Ingredients:
½ cup ricotta cheese (low fat), crumbled
¼ cup black olives, pitted and halved
1 cup cherry tomatoes, sliced
1 lemon, juiced
1 tbsp pine nuts, toasted
6 medium Swiss chard leaves, blanched
1/2 cup fresh basil leaves
pinch sea salt (optional)

Directions:
1. Cut Swiss chard leaves into six squares, approximately six inches squared.
2. In a shallow pot, bring two cups of water to a gentle boil. Using a slotted spoon or spatula, dip one square at a time in the boiling water for 15 seconds. In a medium bowl, place the freshly blanched Swiss chard into cold water to stop the cooking process. Repeat with other leaves. Let cool.
3. Place a leaf square on a work surface and layer in ½ tablespoon of cheese, a few olives, 2 tbsp of tomato, a sprinkle of pine nuts and one or two basil leaves on top. Squeeze fresh lemon juice on top of mixture.
4. To create dolmades, first fold in the sides of the chard, then roll the leaf up until sealed.
Makes six rolls

Adalberto

2011-06-30T22:47:00.010-04:00

VAR. OF ALBERTO
Chictopia
Street Peeper
Mr. Newton

Harper's Bazaar

I Want To Be A Roitfeld

The Trouble With Andrew
In the royal-wedding afterglow, Buckingham Palace still has a major P.R. problem: how to handle Prince Andrew, Britain’s trade ambassador and fourth in line to the throne. The prince’s dissolute lifestyle, links to unsavory foreign potentates, and friendship with the American registered sex offender Jeffrey Epstein are undercutting the Queen’s efforts to rehabilitate the monarchy.

The Prince Who Blew Through Billions
When two British lawyers, Faith Zaman and Thomas Derbyshire, signed on in 2004 to manage the affairs of Prince Jefri Bolkiah, notorious playboy brother of the Sultan of Brunei, they entered a world of orgiastic wealth: 250 companies, 2,000 cars, luxury hotels, planeloads of women and polo ponies, colossal diamonds. Caught in a feud between the prince and the sultan, they ended up in a court battle over $23 million. Following the couple’s legal victory, Mark Seal gets an exclusive on the story the jury didn’t hear. [...]

In court, the Manoukians described Jefri’s “sex parties” at home and abroad. (The manifest on his 747 usually comprised mostly young women.) Their attorney called him a man of “unlimited tastes,” a “one-man walking market,” who bought practically everything he saw, including a rug woven with jewels in threads of solid gold ($7 million), 10 jewel-encrusted wristwatches that depicted on the hour a couple copulating ($8 million), and similarly erotic fountain pens ($1.3 million). In London alone, the Manoukians charged, he kept 40 prostitutes at the Dorchester hotel and spent $34 million for the former Playboy Club at 45 Park Lane—more than four times the market price, according to the brothers—so that he could house more hookers and secretly indulge his passion for gambling. (Jefri denied employing prostitutes.) [...]

Some Girls
"This was an ok read, but not something I felt really gripped me or anything I felt uplifted by. By the end of the story I was rather glad to put it down, since I felt after reading it, that Lauren's life was neither glamorous nor intriguing, just so much wasted potential. The story left me with a sad feeling."

Inside Ralph's Garage

McGill Professor Warns About Spending Excesses Of Rich And Famous
While average Canadians continually hear from government about the fragility of the economy, young Canadian men have been cited in studies as among the most prolific spenders on high-end items such as expensive clothes and cars.

Crass Struggle: Greed, Glitz & Gluttony In A Wanna-Have World
REVIEW
"My parents survived the Great Depression and taught me my most important lesson: "Work hard to earn money for the necessities in life. Don't think having lots of money or stuff makes you a better or more important person than anyone else." This book documents the incredible lengths to which people will go to acquire obscene levels of wealth. Lies, theft, murder, social and ecological devastation become means to satisfy greed. Naylor's documentation is both fascinating and horrifying and helps us understand, for example, the ludicrous subprime bubble that burst in 2008." -David Suzuki

Aruna

2011-06-11T19:40:00.009-04:00

"REDDISH BROWN"

The Screening Dilemma
Among all the reasons overscreening is taking place, the least discussed — and most disturbing — is money.

Top 30 Superfoods
Dr. Fuhrman: Recipes

Pasha

2010-12-14T17:55:00.006-05:00

DIM. OF PAVEL
A Fahionable Life: Giorgio Armani's Yacht

TORONTO
This Just In...

Xavia

2010-11-20T21:01:00.007-05:00

FORM OF XAVIER

Self Centered, Self Involved, Self Destructive
Olivia Stren on the self-love of narcissists

[Flare Magazine (Nov.10) - Excerpt]
"Narcissism is the dark side of individualism," says Campbell, who explains that while North American society has long celebrated the individual and the pursuit of happiness, narcissism is individualism run amok; if individualism is the character actor, narcissism is the reality TV star. "It's individualism without responsibilty, without a fundamental sense of equality - it gets easily perverted. The pursuit of happiness can go from liberty to doing whatever the hell you want. It's the idea of license versus liberty." [...]

Narcissists, tending to be charming and self-promotional, also have a talent for initiating shallow relationships - making sites such as Facebook a fantasyland for the everyday narcissist. Facebook may not have caused the epidemic, and may not have the power to turn the average user into a narcissist, but it serves as a playpen for narcissists, giving them the arena to do what they love: peacock and self-promote. "What we've found is that narcissistic people who use Facebook, use it as a way of maintaining their narcissism - to present themselves with highly attractive and provocative images. It allows people who are narcissistic to be narcissistic." In that sense, Facebook is to the narcissist, what the liquor store is to the alcoholic - it won't create one so much as fuel one. [...]

MUSIC
Insatiable

TORONTO
Playing Games

Ursula

2010-10-28T13:57:00.003-04:00

"LITTLE BEAR"

LOVE THE WAY YOU LIE
Now I know we said things
Did things
That we didn't mean
And we fall back
Into the same patterns
Same routine
But your temper's just as bad
As mine is
You're the same as me
But when it comes to love
You're just as blinded
Baby please come back
It wasn't you
Baby it was me
Maybe our relationship
Isn't as crazy as it seems
Maybe that's what happens
When a tornado meets a volcano
All I know is
I love you too much
To walk away though
Come inside
Pick up your bags off the sidewalk
Don't you hear sincerity
In my voice when I talk
Told you this is my fault
Look me in the eyeball
Next time I'm pissed
I'll aim my fist
At the dry wall
Next time
There will be no next time
I apologize
Even though I know it's lies
I'm tired of the games
I just want her back
I know I'm a liar
If she ever tries to fuckin' leave again
I'mma tie her to the bed
And set this house on fire

Just gonna stand there and watch me burn
But that's alright because I like the way it hurts
Just gonna stand there and hear me cry
But that's alright because I love the way you lie
I love the way you lie, I love the way you lie

Dayo

2010-10-06T19:58:00.008-04:00

"JOY ARRIVES"

Brad Goreski, the Zelig of Fashion Week

Geeks Versus Hipsters
COMMENTS
"I know the point of the picture is to illustrate how alike the two castes are, but the crucial differences are in the motives behind the items on each individual.

The guy on the left is holding an iPhone because that's what other hipsters do. He's wearing odd clothing because that's what other hipsters do. He's wearing glasses because that's what other hipsters do.

The guy on the right is holding an iPhone because he has a love for technology. He's wearing a geeky T-shirt because he loves Star Trek. He's wearing glasses because he can't see.

That's the difference between the two groups. Geeks do what they do because its what they love (or need) to do. The aesthetic is a byproduct of that. The hipster artificially manufactures the aesthetic for the sake of the aesthetic. Its inorganic, and thus reviled."

"I feel like one big reason why Geeks have a problem with hipsters is that hipsters are taking all of the image benefits of being a Geek (being outside the mainstream, intelligence), without having gone through the pain of being a Geek. Being a Geek, particularly in high/middle school, can suck. Seriously fucking suck. It's sort of like when a wealthy politician tries to appropriate some tenuous connection to poverty; they don't really deserve the positives without taking the negatives as well."

"The difference between a real nerd and a Hipster. .. talent. When you're really good at what you do, you don't need to dress the part.
The Real geeks out there are at the race track or the university lab or the brewery, or the dark room, and they look like normal people. They don't have time to play geek.
Sort of the same reason only middle classs people wear luxury brands with giant logos."

"You weren't wrong when you commented 'To Geek is to Love' But it's not only that. A geek will explore and create the sub-culture to which the Hipsters glean from.

The geeks are the miners, digging deeper, looking to create the next cool thing—whether it is Art, tech, music, or fashion.

Then the hipsters, the consumers, They are the ones trying to make it fashionable or marketable. It's not to say that hipsters don't have any original thoughts. They just have the money to exploit other's.

'He's the one the that sings all our pretty songs, but he don't know what it means'. — Kurt Cobain

A hipster can appreciate the geek, but will never understand the process that it took to create that thing that they wear/ listen too/ or use.

Which makes anyone who is a hipster, and not a geek about anything... dare I bring it back... a poser. And that is the saddest of all."

"To me a hipster is someone who's taken on the mantle of "geek" or "nerd" because it is now a cool thing to be. Like how some people started dressing like truckers because Ashton Kutcher did it. They may look like a geek, they may talk something like a geek, but they've never stayed up until sunrise roll playing, kit-bashing, root hacking, guild raiding, kernel compiling, component tuning, spec comparing, code debugging, reference reading, photo time-lapsing, achievement unlocking, photoshop tweaking, costume making, board-game playing, sound remastering, library digitizing or many of the other things most of us do weekly. Scratch the surface and there isn't much actual geekery under there.

But I don't hate them. Quite the contrary, as long as we can sell them hopelessly overpriced geek-nostalgia laced paraphernalia I'm all for them."

"I stopped caring for labels long ago. I met so many labeled people (hipsters, punks, indies, skinheads) who were extremely nice, and some quite loathful gadget loving geeks.

It all boils down to whether the person is a douche or not."

THE BIG BANG THEORY
Tampon Talk
Who's Smarter: Sheldon or Leonard?
Sheldon the Germaphobe
The Friendship Algorithm
Johnny Galecki: interview

Move for Me
Bulletproof
Day 'n' Night
Stereo Love
Like a G6

Tinuviel

2010-09-28T19:29:00.008-04:00

"NIGHTINGALE"

Jimmy the Bartender
Q: I think my buddy has a drinking problem. We go out together, though. So I'm wondering how I raise my concerns without sounding like a complete hypocrite?

A: Take it from a guy who's had to deny more than a few desperate men their alcoholic ambrosia: It's never easy to tell a guy he needs help. But this isn't about your looking like a hypocrite; it's about your having the BBs not to stand idle while he kills himself or someone else. Yes, there's going to be a confrontation. Yes, he's going to try to turn this around on you. Yes, you have to do it. So strap on a set and do it.

15 Stats to Stop Keeping

The Gashlycrumb Tinies (Abridged and Totally Adulterated)

RESPECT.

REcreate

Q&A: Adrian Grenier

100 Movie Spoilers in 5 Minutes
50 Book Spoilers in 4 Minutes
These Are the Best Dance Moves, According to Science
Citibank's Advice to Women: Grow a Pair
German Surgeon Sentenced Over Op Theatre Punch-Up
Hey There Keanu

Bevin

2010-09-21T20:25:00.003-04:00

FORM OF BÉBINN

Gesture Remote

THE WEB IS DEAD

TORONTO
Juiced Bar
We Can't Afford Ford

Radomila

2010-09-14T21:50:00.008-04:00

FORM OF RADOMIL

Patricia Waller

Alice Palmer

Sad Don Draper

Judo: History, Theory, Practice

Russian Prime Minister Personally Puts Out Two Wildfires
COMMENT
"He's worse than Saddam. More dangerous, because he's been in charge of an enormous country which he's treated like his own personal fiefdom. I can't express how bad this psycho creep has been, and continues to be, for Russia. Back to the same czarist bullshit--no middle class, just the corrupt, obscenely rich & the tragically poor. "Economic growth," my ass. He's pumping oil & gas like crazy, enriching himself & his corrupt dog-pig oligarch friends, and tossing a few scraps to the moujiks to keep them quiet.

Hey, at least vodka's cheap & plentiful!"

Form 3 Vibrator

Apple Unveils New Apple TV
Clearly Obsessed
Neil Visel

TORONTO
Chic Ink
Gasaholic

Avdotya

2010-09-04T23:12:00.006-04:00

FORM OF EUDOCIA
On Women and Street Harassment
COMMENTS
It really can be scary. I've had guys stop their cars at night and get out-like they think they're getting a date out of it or something. I've had a few guys try to follow me home. I don't think that guys get how frightening it is for some random guy to barge in and demand your attention, threatening verbal and possibly physical abuse if you don't give it.

Reply: The guys who do this know exactly how frightening it is. That's the whole point, to intimidate and assert their "rightful dominance." The guys who don't do this, but don't get why we're upset may never understand. They're not in our shoes. They just may never get it. But even if they don't get it, they need to "check their privilege."

The last time I got catcalled on the street, I went home with him and did him all night. It was the best sex I ever had!

Of course, that's totally not true. But I guess in the warped world some of these guys inhabit, it could happen.

Him: "How bout a threesome, y'all?"
Me: "Sure - you want her strap-on or mine in your mouth?"

The look on his face was fucking. priceless.

Russian Women

Brunno Jahara

Millicent

2010-09-01T18:18:00.012-04:00

FROM AMALASUINTHA

Conan Announces Name of New TBS Show
Conan O'Brien Pictures
Bonnaroo: Team #Cocoroo Celebrates Conan O’Brien

Li Xiaofeng

Body Painting Festival
2010 Daegu Bodypainting Festival

Whoops! The 10 Greatest (Accidental) Inventions of All Time
Customize Almost Anything You Can Buy to Fit Your Tastes

A Ten-Step Support Group for Bedbugs
COMMENT
"OK, this is going to sound like I'm getting paid to endorse this company, but I'm seriously a satisfied customer and want to share with any and all fellow bedbug sufferers that YOU CAN DO IT BY YOURSELF! you really can! no exterminator needed. In fact, if you use an exterminator, you will likely get a second infestation. The exterminator's methods do not target the eggs. So in a few days. Boom. Another infestation.

However! This company, Dead Bed Bugs sells products that acutally work. I swear.

I bought the mattress and box spring covers, the spray (which smells pleasantly of peppermint), and the Diatomaceous Earth dust with sprayer.

All of these things are totally natural and completely safe for pets, I even lent the leftovers to a friend who was having troubles and she was comfortable using it on her baby's bed.

Its a little time consuming, and it may seem strange to have to vacuum your mattress, but once you get it all done you will not see another bug. One afternoon waging war against them and I've been bug free for more than a year. You get a lot of product for your money so should the need arise again, you'll not need to spend MORE money on exterminators that don't kill all of the bugs.

Seriously, do yourself a favor and buy this stuff. The spray was so cool. I caught one against the wall and sprayed his ass and I could see him melting before my eyes. It took about 5 seconds. Which, when you have bedbugs is a godsend."

Culture Label

Lucky At Your Service
Brought to you by Lucky magazine, Lucky At Your Service digital shopping concierge connects you with what you want to buy now, wherever you are. SHOP thousands of options, updated daily. LOCATE products online or put on hold at a store near you for same-day pickup!

Wasted Guy at Coachella 2010

TORONTO
Best. Header. Ever.
Office Asset
Geeks Seek:

Frigg

2010-08-28T11:11:00.010-04:00

"BELOVED"

The Jon Stewart Clip That Will Make Glenn Beck Cry Real Tears (Again)

Common Nonsense

Glenn Beck's Ratings Collapse

Zombie Nation/The Beck Doctrine Pics
Who is the Craziest Pundit?

Monster Celebrities Pictures

TORONTO
Just for Kicks
Rub 'n' Tug
Wanted: Model

Tacita

2010-08-25T09:53:00.009-04:00

FORM OF TACITUS

Unconventional Material Challenge

Pete Campbell's Bitchface

Share Your Most Spectacular 'I Quit' Stories
"A combination firing/quitting story.

The Scene: A small southern advertising agency that paid dirt wages in a small southern town.

The Cast: Me, a very early twenties, eager college grad recently poached (because I had so much "potential") from another advertising business by an early 30s narcissistic, charming, yankee woman (no offense to my fellow NYers) with profound OCD issues (all of which my young self didn't/couldn't see as dangerous)." [...]

Medvedev’s Parents ‘Were Summoned to School’

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev Loves LG's Watch Phone

Justice for Billie Jean: mashup
YouSwear.com
deviantART Launches Free HTML5 Drawing App
Top 10 Ways Your Brain is Sabotaging You
VH1's 100 Greatest Hip-Hop Songs
Can We Date?
NatraBurst
Bentonite Clay for Internal Healing
Top 10 Stinky Cheeses in the World
4 Ways to Take Years Off Your Eyes
7 Solutions for Fighting Eye Wrinkles
Top 10 Facebook Fixes

Galadriel

2010-08-20T23:22:00.013-04:00

"MAIDEN CROWNED WITH A RADIANT GARLAND"

Tagger Sheds Light

A Hidden World, Growing Beyond Control
The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work.

Blood Sugar and Insulin: The Essentials
You have approximately 5 liters of blood traveling around in your blood vessels and heart at any given moment. In these 5 liters of blood, you need only about one teaspoon of sugar for all of your regular activities. If you regularly have more than a teaspoon of sugar floating through your blood vessels, the excess sugar can slow down your circulation, which, over time, can cause all of the problems you would expect to have if you had thick maple syrup clogging up your blood vessels. This is essentially what happens when a person becomes diabetic.

Lawsuits You Should Know About
StreetSpark
Fans of Underground Restaurants/Supperclubs
Mass Mingling
Reality Stars: Where Are They Now?
Is There Anything Wrong With Temptation Island?
Non-Invasive Ways to Measure Blood Glucose Levels
Move-It Box Trolley
Warm Up the Nation's Welcome
New tips on extending a warm welcome to overseas visitors in the run up to the 2012 Olympics are launched today by VisitBritain, the national tourism agency.

10 Lame Roles
New 'Superbug'

Naturally

Cosima

2010-08-10T13:58:00.005-04:00

FORM OF COSIMO

Step Up: Parking Lot Dance
Briana Evigan: Move Shake Drop
Club Can't Handle Me

X-Art.com

TORONTO
The X Club
How High?

Lempi

2010-08-08T14:05:00.009-04:00

"LOVE"

Instant Natural Jelly Fish

Preserved Duck Eggs

Haw Flakes

Mobaccho! (Choco)

Vintage Ad: Real or Fake?

10 Most Offensive Car Ads

25 Vintage Ads that Would Be Banned Today

Would You Drink This?

Pomona

2010-08-04T15:23:00.007-04:00

FROM POMUS

11-Year-Old Viral Star Placed Under Police Protection
COMMENTS
I'm ignorant of the internet, computers, and 4chan. How do trolls (like those on 4chan and Tumblr) find their victims' personal info? Are we assuming the victims (adults included) put it out there? What stops someone from being attacked by a virtual stranger (say, a serial rapist you meet in passing) and having their personal info traced based on their membership on a site like Gawker or any other anonymous internet source (email servers, whatever)?

Reply: As a person who once interned for a media company doing research on people, I can tell you first hand that you'd be surprised how much info I could find about anyone with just their name and birth date (both of which people readily make available on their social networking accounts).

Within seconds of typing that info into a database, I could find out every address that you've ever lived at, who you've worked with, your neighbors, your assets, your criminal record, professional licenses, the names of relatives and others who live in your household, your email addresses and any websites that you started, and the first 5 digits of your social security number.

If you're concerned about your own security, you need to learn from the tracking skills of 4channers. I'm no expert, but here are a few things that I've picked up:

1) Pictures you take have data attached to them that the tech-savvy can use to find out the name of the person who owns the camera, the type of camera used to take the picture, the date and time of the picture, and where the picture was taken.

2) Photos ripped from Facebook have unique file names that can enable the tech-savvy to track it back to where it was ripped from (4channers have used this to track pedos who post pictures of prospective victims on the board and warn the kids' families).

3) Your online accounts can be traced back to you if you use the same email, username, etc. for all of your accounts. Essentially, you leave a trail of crumbs all over the web if you use the name email or username everywhere you go, making it really easy for people to link those accounts in order to help them piece together information about your life that they need to figure out your real-life identity.

I'm sure there's more, but that's all that I can think of for now. It's definitely worth spending a week on 4chan (if you can handle the gore and gross shit) to learn about the methods these guys use to track people.

However, the best defense seems to be just to stay anonymous and not draw attention to yourself (cough, Jessi, cough). If you do that, you'll probably be just fine. :)

Online Predators Can Determine Where Posted Photos and Videos Were Shot

An Open Letter to the CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch
I visited an Abercrombie & Fitch last year for the first time in a decade, and the clothes, I must admit, were actually pretty nice. Not only were they well-designed and on-trend, they were worthy of coveting. But there’s a few reasons not that many people have realized this. Fortunately, I think I have some ideas on how you can lure your customer back: [...]

People in Japan Don't Like Abercrombie & Fitch, Either
COMMENT
"All of the things that are listed as "annoying" are the things that is keeping the line outside of the Abercrombie and Fitch in Milan around the corner. Italian teenagers and college students (before the Milan outpost opened) viewed the company as proof of wealth because Italians could afford to travel to the US and shop at American stores. Since it opened in December of last year, everyone is going crazy over the english speaking help, blasting music, and moosed out polos and flannels. If nothing else, the merchandising and store design are amazing."

TORONTO
"POP!"
Jersey DJ
King St. West
Artistic Roots

Soledad

2010-08-01T20:23:00.011-04:00

"SOLITUDE"

Moist Production

Emergency Shelters and Disaster Relief

Revealed: Brutal Guide to Punishing Jailed Youths
The War on Kids

StillTasty: Your Ultimate Shelf Life Guide

Zac Efron's Pool Party
"You smell like a waffle."

Top 20 'Whitest' and 'Blackest' Names
Don't Daze Me, Bro! Police Experiment with Non-Lethal Dazer Lazer
6 New Credit Scams to Watch Out For

Aislin

2010-08-01T04:52:00.006-04:00

VAR. OF AISLING
Ten Things About Marc Mezinsky

20 of the Funniest Billboards You Will Ever See

44 Creative Advertising Ideas

PRE-OWNED BMW

The Top 5 Most Recalled Drug Ads of 2008

The 20 Worst Anti-Drug Ads

Eligia

2010-07-28T17:52:00.046-04:00

FORM OF ELIGIUS
The Corporation: trailer
Official site

"Corporations are artificial creations. You might say they’re monsters trying to devour as much profit as possible at anyone’s expense."

"They think they have feelings, they have politics, they have belief systems, they really only have one thing: the bottom line. How to make as much money as they can in any given quarter. That’s it."

"Running a business is a tough proposition, there are costs to be minimized at every turn, and at some point the corporation says, you know, let somebody else deal with that. Let’s let somebody else supply the military power to the Middle East to protect the oil at its source, let’s let somebody else build the roads that we can drive these automobiles on, let’s let somebody else have those problems, and that is where externalities come from, that notion of, let somebody else deal with that – I got all I can handle myself."

"Something happened in 1940 which marked the beginning of a new era. The era of the ability to synthesize and create, on an unlimited scale, new chemicals that had never existed before in the world."

"If I take a gun and shoot you, that’s criminal. If I expose you to some chemicals, which knowingly are going to kill you, what difference is there?

The difference is, that it takes longer to kill you."

"We are now in the midst of a major cancer epidemic—and I have no doubt and I have documented the basis for this, that industry is largely responsible for this overwhelming epidemic of cancer, in which one in every 2 men get cancer in their lifetimes, and one in every 3 women get cancer in their lifetimes."

"We know that people are consuming antibiotics through their food and we know that that’s contributing to antibiotic resistant bacteria and diseases. And we know we’re at a crisis when somebody can go into a hospital and get a staff infection and it can’t be cured and they die. That's a crisis."

"Our information that we receive does not include anything about the environmental conditions because until the environmental conditions become a commodity themselves or are being traded then obviously we will not have anything to do with that. It doesn't come into our psyche at all."

"Again and again we have the problem that whether you obey the law or not, is a matter whether it's cost effective. If the chance of getting caught and the penalty are less than it costs to comply, people think of it as being just a business decision."

"We are leaving a terrible legacy of poison and diminishment of the environment for our grandchildren’s grandchildren, generations not yet born. Some people have called that intergenerational tyranny, a form of taxation without representation, levied by us on generations yet to be. It’s the wrong thing to do."

"One of the questions that comes up periodically is to what extent could a corporation be considered to be psychopathic. And if we look at a corporation as a legal person, that it may not be that difficult to actually draw the transition between psychopathy in the individual, to psychopathy in a corporation.

We could go through the characteristics that define this particular disorder, one by one, and see how they might apply to corporations:

-Callous unconcern for the feelings of others
-Incapacity to maintain enduring relationships
-Reckless disregard for the safety of others
-Deceitfulness: repeated lying and conning others for profit
-Incapacity to experience guilt
-Failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behavior

They would have all the characteristics, and in fact, in many respects, the corporation of that sort is the proto-typical psychopath."

"The corporation is not a person it doesn’t think. People in it think, and for them it is legitimate to create terminator technology so that farmers are not able to save their seeds. Seeds that will destroy themselves through a suicide gene. Seeds that are designed to only produce crop in one season. You really need to have a brutal mind. It’s a war against evolution to even think in those terms. But quite clearly profits are so much higher in their minds."

"If you’re a CEO, I mean, do you think your shareholders really care whether you’re Billy Buttercup or not? You know, do you think that they would prefer you to be a nice guy, over having money in their pocket? I don’t think so. I think people want money. That’s the bottom line."

"The fact that most of these companies are run by white men, white rich men, means that they are out of touch with what the majority of the world is. Because the majority of this planet are not a bunch of rich white guys. They’re people of other colors, they’re the majority. Women are the majority, and the poor and working poor, make up the majority of this planet. So the decisions that they make come from not the reality that exists throughout the world."

"When the US bombed Iraq back in 1991 the price of oil went from $13 to $40 a barrel for Christ sake! Now we couldn’t wait for the bombs to start raining down on Saddam Hussein. We were all excited. We wanted Saddam to really create problems. Do whatever you have to do, set fire to some more oil wells, because the price is going to go higher. Every broker was chanting that, there was not a broker that I know of that wasn’t excited about that."

"In devastation there is opportunity."

"One of the things I find very interesting in our current debates is this concept of who creates wealth. That wealth is only created when it’s owned privately.

What would you call clean water, fresh air, a safe environment? Are they not a form of wealth? And why does it only become wealth when some entity puts a fence around it and declares it private property? Well, you know, that’s not wealth creation. That’s wealth usurption."

"Public institutions can have a counter cyclic property. So that means that they can maintain employment in periods of recession, which increases demand, which helps you get out of a recession. A private company can’t do that in a recession. (It) throws out the work force cause that’s the way you make money."

"Comparing the marketing of yesteryear to the marketing of today is like comparing a BB gun to a smart bomb. It’s not the same as when I was a kid, or even when the people who are young adults today were kids. It’s much more sophisticated, and it’s much more pervasive. It’s not that products themselves are bad or good. It’s the notion of manipulating children into buying the products."

"The more insight you have about the consumer the more creative you’ll be in your communication strategies. So if that takes a psychologist, yeah, we want one of those on staff."

"One family cannot combat an industry that spends 12 billion dollars a year trying to get their children. They can’t do it.

"They are tomorrow's adult consumers, so start talking with them now, build that relationship when they’re younger… and you’ve got them as an adult.

"The goal for the corporations is to maximize profit and market share. And they also have a goal for their target, namely the population. They have to be turned into completely mindless consumers of goods that they do not want. You have to develop what are called “created wants”. So you have to create wants. You have to impose on people what’s called a philosophy of futility. You have to focus them on the insignificant things of life, like fashionable consumption.

I’m just basically quoting business literature. And it makes perfect sense. The ideal is to have individuals who are totally disassociated from one another. Whose conception of themselves, the sense of value, is: Just how many created wants can I satisfy?"

"Corporations don’t advertise products particularly, they’re advertising a way of life. A way of thinking. A story of who we are as people and how we got here and what’s the source of our so-called liberty, and our so-called freedom. You know, so you have decades and decades and decades of propaganda and education teaching us to think in a certain way. When applied to the large corporation, it’s that the corporation was inevitable, that it’s indispensable, that it is somehow remarkably efficient, and that it is responsible for progress and the good life."

"Branding is not advertising - it’s production. And very successful corporations, the corporations of the future do not produce products. They produce brand meaning. The dissemination of the idea of themselves is their act of production. And the dissemination of the idea of themselves is an enormously invasive project.

So, how do you make a brand idea real? Well, a good place to start is by building a three dimensional manifestation of your brand. For a company like Disney it goes even further where it’s actually building a town, Celebration Florida. Their inspiration, their brand image, is the all American family. And the sort of bygone American town. And that’s where you see the truly imperialist aspirations of branding which is about building these privatized branded cocoons, which maybe you start by shopping in and then you continue by holidaying in but eventually why not just move in."

"What happens if we wake up one day, and we find out that virtually all of our relationships that are mediated between us and our fellow human beings are commercial? We find out that virtually every relationship we have is a commercially arbitrated relationship with our fellow human being? Can civilization survive on that narrow a definition of how we interact with each other?"

"People are always thinking, “Well, oh I know product placement. That’s when they put stuff in movies!” Well, yes kind of. I mean, that’s definitely traditional product placement. But real life product placement is just that: placing stuff in movies, but the movie is actually your life."

"If you want to be critical, if you want to go through your life like that, sure, be critical of every single person that walks up to you. But if they are showing you something that fits, and something that works, and something that makes your life better in some way, well then who cares. Again, just say thanks!"

"We’ve all been hearing about the announcement, that we have mapped the human genome. But what the public doesn’t know, is now there’s a great race by genomic companies, and biotech companies, and life science companies, to find the treasure in the map.

The treasure are the individual genes that make up the blueprint of the human race. Every time they capture a gene and isolate it, these biotech companies claim it as intellectual property. The breast cancer gene, the cystic fibrosis gene - it goes on, and on, and on. If this goes unchallenged in the world community, within less than ten years, a handful of global companies will own, directly, or through license, the actual genes that make up the evolution of our species. And they’re now beginning to patent the genomes of every other creature on this planet.

In the Age of Biology the politics is going to sort out between those who believe life first has intrinsic value, and therefore we should choose technologies and commercial venues that honor the intrinsic value. And then we’re going to have people who believe, “Look, life is simple utility. It’s commercial fare”, and they will line up with the idea to let the marketplace be the ultimate arbiter of all of the Age of Biology."

DEFINITIONS
Human Genome Project
Gene Patent

The Kept University
In an age when ideas are central to the economy, universities will inevitably play a role in fostering growth. But should we allow commercial forces to determine the university's educational mission and academic ideals? In higher education today corporations not only sponsor a growing amount of research—they frequently dictate the terms under which it is conducted. Professors, their image as unbiased truth-seekers notwithstanding, often own stock in the companies that fund their work. And universities themselves are exhibiting a markedly more commercial bent. Most now operate technology-licensing offices to manage their patent portfolios, often guarding their intellectual property as aggressively as any business would. Schools with limited budgets are pouring money into commercially oriented fields of research, while downsizing humanities departments and curbing expenditures on teaching. Occasional reports on these developments, including a recent 60 Minutes segment on corporate-sponsored research, have begun to surface beyond the university. But the larger picture has yet to be filled out. It is this: universities, once wary beneficiaries of corporate largesse, have become eager co-capitalists, embracing market values as never before. [...]

"I said you know this isn’t about being fired for no cause. You’re firing us because we refused to put on the air something that we knew and demonstrated to be false and misleading. That’s what this is about. And because we put up a fight, because we stood up to this big corporation and we stood up to your editors and we stood up to your lawyers. And we said to you, 'look, there ought to be a principle higher than just making money.'

And she wrote a letter back and said 'You are right, that’s exactly what it was. You stood up to us on this story and that’s why we’re letting you go.'

Big mistake. Big mistake. That says retaliation. You can’t retaliate against employees if they’re standing up for something that they believe is illegal, that they don’t want to participate in. So that gave us the whistle blower status that we needed in the state of Florida to file a whistle blower claim against our employer."

"There was an interesting connection between the rise of fascism in Europe and the consciousness of politically radical people about corporate power. Because there was a recognition that fascism rose in Europe with the help of enormous corporations."

"Mussolini was greatly admired all across the spectrum. Business loved him, investment shot up. Incidentally, when Hitler came in, in Germany the same thing happened there, investment shot up in Germany. He had the work force under control. He was getting rid of dangerous left wing elements. Investment opportunities were improving. There were no problems. These are wonderful countries."

"I think one of the greatest untold stories of the twentieth century is the collusion between corporations—especially in America—and Nazi Germany. First in terms of how the corporations from America helped to essentially rebuild Germany and support the early Nazi regime. And then, when the war broke out, figured out a way to keep everything going.

So General Motors was able to keep Opal going, Ford was able to keep their thing going, and companies like Coca-Cola, they couldn’t keep the Coca-Cola going, so what they did was they invented Fanta Orange for the Germans, and that’s how Coke was able to keep their profits coming in, to Coca-Cola. So when you drink Fanta Orange, that’s the Nazi drink that was created so that Coke could continue making money while millions of people died."

Social Outsiders in Nazi Germany

Fascism is as Fascism Does

IBM and Nazi Germany
"This is the proof that IBM enabled the Holocaust. The connection to New York is now proven," Wolfe, a former U.S. infantry officer who ran de-Nazification programs during the U.S. occupation of postwar Germany, said in a phone interview.

Fanta Soda by the Coca-Cola Company

"It should not surprise us that corporate allegiance to profits will trump their allegiance to any flag. A recent US Treasury Department report revealed that in one week alone 57 US corporations were fined for trading with official enemies of the United States, including terrorists, tyrants and despotic regimes."

"Corporations have gone global. And by going global, the governments have lost some control over corporations. Regardless of whether the corporation can be trusted or cannot be trusted, governments today do not have over the corporations the power that they had, and the leverage that they had 50 or 60 years ago. And that’s a major change. So, governments have become powerless compared to what they were before."

"Capitalism today commands the towering heights, and has displaced politics and politicians as the new high priests, and reigning oligarchs of our system. So, capitalism and its principle protagonists and players, corporate CEOs, have been accorded unusual power and access. This is not to deny the significance of government and politicians, but these are the new high priests."

"Social responsibility isn’t a deep shift because it’s a voluntary tactic. A tactic, a reaction to a certain market at this point. And as the corporation reads the market differently, it can go back. One day you see Bambi, next day you see Godzilla."

The Ecology of Commerce
REVIEW
"Before I read this book, I used to think that business and the environment were inherently at odds. But then I realized that this doesn't have to be the case. According to Hawken, the problem lies in our economic system's design, and no amount of management or programs is going to change that. In order to make things better, we're going to have to rethink our economic structure, and in that possibility is where Mr. Hawken finds hope."

Spooked: Espionage in Corporate America

Masami

2010-07-26T16:16:00.015-04:00

"BECOME BEAUTIFUL"

2010 Comic-Con Reveals

Ciudad Juárez
Ciudad Juárez is one of the fastest growing cities in the world in spite of the fact that it is "the most violent zone in the world outside of declared war zones."

Female homicides in Ciudad Juárez
The phenomenon of the female homicides in Ciudad Juárez, called in Spanish the feminicidios ("femicides") and las muertas de Juárez ("The dead women of Juárez"), involves the violent deaths of hundreds of women since 1993 in the northern Mexican city of Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, a border city across the Rio Grande from the U.S. city of El Paso, Texas. The estimated homicide toll is speculated by authorities to be about 400, but many local residents believe that the true count of los feminicidios stands at an estimated 5,000 victims. Most of the cases remained unsolved as of 2003, and are still unsolved today.

The victims of these crimes have preponderantly been young women, between 12 and 22 years of age. Many were students, and most were maquiladora [manufacturing] workers. A number were relative newcomers to Ciudad Juarez who had migrated from other areas of Mexico. The victims were generally reported missing by their families, with their bodies found days or months later abandoned in vacant lots, outlying areas or in the desert. In most of these cases there were signs of sexual violence, torment, torture or in some cases disfigurement.

The Daughters of Juarez: A True Story of Serial Murder South of the Border
REVIEW
"Here's the deal: you are murdered and your death is not counted, you are murdered and your death is not investigated, you are murdered and someone is framed for your death. This is Juárez, the jewel of our free trade theories. This is a book everyone should read. And then wonder about the United States and Mexico and this hell of dead women they paper over with lies."

SAVAGE LOVE
[07/22/10]
I was recently told that I am being puritanical and self-righteous because I can't get over the fact that my partner spends a good deal of time seeking out pictures of very young girls to masturbate to. Nothing illegal, he says, but still...

He admits to having a 20-year-plus addiction to porn, and with that particular addiction, he says, comes the need to continue upping the taboo factor in order to get off. I can understand the natural escalation from traditional porn to something more risqué, and I'm fine with him watching chicks with dicks defecate in each other's mouths until his eyes bleed, because those she-males are consenting adults.

Eight-year-old girls, however, are innocents preyed upon by pedophiles and people with child-lust disorders, in my opinion, and I think a rational adult, even in the throes of sexual whimsy, should recognize that boundary and not cross it. My question is this: Is it considered typical sexual behavior for a guy who's really into porn to seek out YouTube videos of 10-year-old ballerinas without having any kind of pathological inclination toward pedophilia?

-He Says I've Turned Into My Born-Again-Christian Mother

REPLY: "Whimsy" is not a word I would associate with your boyfriend's actions.

Your partner is chock full o' shit, HSITIMBACM, as my own experiences with porn demonstrate: I've been consuming gay porn for 20-plus years now, and I have yet to "escalate" to YouTube videos of 10-year-old boys doing whatever it is 10-year-old boys do in the videos they upload to YouTube. (Are they jumping on trampolines? Lighting their farts? Writing Sarah Palin's Facebook status updates? I don't know because I've never checked.)

Backing up: It's usually duly closeted members of the religious right who run around claiming that porn consumers seeking new thrills quickly progress from softcore to hardcore to kink to kiddie to kids. I believe your partner—lying piece of shit that he is—has latched on to the rhetoric and reasoning of antiporn crusaders because (1) he doesn't want to take responsibility for his actions ("Woe is me, the helpless porn addict..."), and (2) he has no intention of stopping.

Hopefully your partner hasn't "escalated" to actual kiddie porn yet, HSITIMBACM, and is only repurposing the odd ballet-recital video. But his attempts to rationalize and shift blame—to say nothing of his efforts to convince you that you're the one with the problem—are ominous warning signs. His is the kind of deeply fucked-up, sociopathic reasoning you hear from guys who are consuming actual child porn and/or raping actual children.

Your boyfriend has a problem, not you; he needs help, not YouTube.

COMMENTS
"HSITIMBACM should move out immediately and then turn her partner in to the police. I believe he has crossed the line and there is child pornography somewhere. If she doesn't get away from him, she could find herself prosecuted as well."

"The bastard is getting off on 10-year-old ballerinas, for fuck's sake. A cold chill ran up and down my spine. If that isn't a warning sign in and of itself, I don't know what is. But it's even more likely that the baby ballerinas are only what he's admitting to.

What a lousy analogy from the ballerina molestor's apologist. Adult men may be attracted to 16 year olds: they'll settle for 18, if they have a conscience or are smart. If the horrible husband is attracted to 10 year olds and settling for 12 year olds, that's still massively creepy and throw-him-in-the-deepest-pit criminal. I'd run screaming out of that house, never to return, before the cops beat down the door for the inevitable bust."

"Add another one to the "DTMFA and turn his ass into the cops" brigade. This guy didn't "escalate" to child porn, he's been whackin' it to kids for a while and is only justifying it because you found out.

Also, I find it really funny in a sick, demented way the kinds of bullshit some people will pull to defend pedophiles. If you get off on looking at little kids, you are broken. Period, end of discussion."

Hefina

2010-07-25T18:50:00.009-04:00

FORM OF HEFIN

New Work from Hush

Ten Designers for the 21st Century
No one knows precisely how men will dress in fifty years, but we will almost certainly be wearing some version of these classics that embody men's style at its best. Here, their designers describe how they are evolving and point to what's next.

Hot Seat
Whenever a product remains popular for more than a century, you can bet that it does what it promises and it does it well. Such is the case for Brooks England Ltd., which produces handsome, hand made leather saddles for cyclers of the traditional sort.

Pocket Psychology
A Meditation on the Modern Man's Wallet

10 Words You Mispronounce That Make People Think You're an Idiot
COMMENT
"I must interject for just a moment and point out how audacious it is to claim that “snuck” and “irregardless” are not words. What may seem a bastardization is just the natural evolution of language. Language grows, expands, and changes with time. Both of those examples are now accepted as part of the American lexicon and should be respected as such. If anything is to be addressed, it should be the misuse of irregardless in place of regardless."

The Zeroes: My Misadventures in the Decade Wall Street Went Insane
ABOUT
What "Liar's Poker" was to the 1980s, "The Zeroes" is to the first decade of the new century: an insider's memoir of a gilded era when Wall Street went insane-and took the rest of us down with it.

Randall Lane never set out to become a Wall Street power broker. But during the decade he calls the Zeroes, he started a small magazine company that put him near the white-hot center of the biggest boom in history. Almost by accident, a man who drove a beat-up Subaru and lived in a rented walk-up became the go-to guy for big shots with nine-figure incomes.

Lane's saga began with a simple idea: a glossy magazine exclusively for and about traders, which would treat them like rock stars and entice them to splurge on luxury goods. "Trader Monthly" was an instant hit around the world. Wall Streeters loved the spotlight, and advertisers like Gulfstream, Maybach, and Bulgari loved the marketing opportunity.

To accelerate the buzz, Lane's staff threw parties featuring celebrities, premium steaks, cigars, and top-shelf vodka. Nothing was too expensive or too outrageous. Private jets in Napa Valley. Casino nights in London. And $1,000-a- seat boxing matches in New York, where traders from Goldman Sachs and Bear Stearns pounded each other in front of tuxedoed throngs.

Before long, Wall Street's rich and powerful trusted Lane as a fellow insider-the guy who could turn an anonymous trader into a cover model and media darling. And the rest of the world sought him out as a way to tap into Wall Street's riches. As he emptied his bank account to help keep his little company afloat, he became a nexus for the absurd. Traders who turned 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina into multimillion-dollar windfalls. John McCain closing out the craps tables during an all-night gambling binge. Pop artist Peter Max hustling hundreds of thousands of dollars by selling traders paint-by-numbers portraits. Al Gore, John Travolta, Moby. Corrupt Caribbean rulers, the mobsters from "Goodfellas", the pope. And a retired baseball star turned market guru named Lenny Dykstra, whose rise and fall was a great metaphor for the decade. All played roles in Lane's increasingly surreal world.

When the crash of 2008 hit, Lane's company and life savings were destroyed along with the high-flying traders and dealmakers his magazines exalted. But Lane walked away with something more lasting: an incredible true story, told by a skilled writer and reporter who sat squarely in the middle of one of the critical periods in modern financial and cultural history. People will turn to The Zeroes for many years to come, to find out what the era was really like.

BOSLEY
Bosley: Review & Cost
Bosley Review
Why is Bosley Not Recommended on Your Sites?

Lunete

2010-07-24T18:36:00.007-04:00

VAR. OF LUNED

BONES
Show Score: 9.0 (Superb)
Votes: 15,935
Comic-Con Reel
April Fools!
David Boreanaz Directs
Seeley vs. Stewie
John Francis Daley
Neverending Summer
Freaks and Geeks: opening credits

THE GOOD WIFE: review
Alicia Gets Physical
Then Trust Me
Gum on the Bottom of My Shoe

Violante

2010-07-24T02:53:00.013-04:00

FORM OF YOLANDA

KATE MOSS

NE-YO?

AMY WINEHOUSE

Life In a Day
Kevin Macdonald on 'Life In a Day'
John Cooper on 'Life In a Day'

KNOW YOUR MEME

Parastu

2010-07-23T22:02:00.009-04:00

VAR. OF PARASTOO

Seeing History in 'Mad Men'
Drunk Men

Ugly Betty
Dear Drapers: A Letter to Mad Men's First Family from Their Black Maid
"I wish I had more time to myself like you so I could walk around the house in little salmon pink cigarette pants and maybe go horseback riding and then have sex with a strange hot man in a bar. That sounds awesome. I sure as hell wouldn't be bored and sad and purse my lips and blink a lot. Poor Betty with your housewife malaise boo hoo you look like Grace Kelly wah wah wah. I'm crying so hard I can barely breathe. Oh no, wait, that's the oppressive racism of the world I live in."

Inside Mad Men: Tour of the Costume Shop
Dressing the Part
How to Dress Up Like Don Draper
Don Draper's Suit
Getting 'Mad Men' Hair
Off Duty: The Top Ten Casual Looks from 'Mad Men'

Mad Men "Lighter" DVD Set Makes Me Smile...

Jelica

2010-07-22T20:46:00.005-04:00

DIM. OF JELA
Pussy Natural Energy Drink
French Pussy

The Best-Kept Secrets of the World's Best-Dressed Women

Steampunk Jewelry

How the Human Blockhead Works
If you've ever been to a circus or a sideshow, you might have seen someone perform a trick known as the human blockhead. It's the one where someone hammers a nail into his nostril. Some performers add extra flair by replacing the nail with other objects like spoons, corkscrews or hand-operated drills. Regardless of the pointed implement used, the trick usually gets a strong reaction from the crowd. It's the kind of act that makes some people cringe and look away, while others watch in fascinated horror.

Chloe

2010-07-20T20:20:00.005-04:00

"GREEN SHOOT"

Lindsay Lohan's eHarmony Profile

Rosamund

2010-07-19T16:25:00.007-04:00

"PURE ROSE"

Jud Turner

San Jose: The Deepest Tuck
San Jose isn't the coolest town. It's a good place to earn a living, there are some wonderful people and plenty of parking, but it's just not the coolest. [...]

I live downtown, and Saturday night is such a human disaster zone that it's actually overtly hilarious. The first time I took a stroll around all the clubs, it was sort of like the time I went to an anime convention: the toughest part was trying not to laugh straight at people. You haven't seen San Jose until you've seen a rail-thin geek walking to the clubs with all his bros and stopping in the middle of the sidewalk to perform a deep, deep frontal tuck of his pastel green polo shirt into his cargo jorts. [...]

To be fair, San Jose isn't all deep-tucked nerdbros and Popeye Crockers; there's actually a thriving hipster scene. The major difference between the scene here and the scene in any other city in the world, though, is that San Jose hipsterism isn't based on art or music. It's all about bikes. The local youth culture is dominated by fixies, which are like regular bikes but brakeless and functionally useless (but San Jose is completely flat, so who cares). There's a monthly event called "Bike Party," during which thousands of fixie dorks ride down the street yelling "BIKE PARTEH!"-- and that's pretty much the upper coolness limit of the local scene. [...]

Points of Attraction
What makes a person attractive? For me, it goes beyond looks and intelligence and I've come up with a point system to illustrate this.

Kia Hamsters Not Boring Enough for Future Ads, Company Says

David & Goliath

Delilah

2010-07-18T15:30:00.007-04:00

"DELICATE, WEAK, LANGUISHING"

4chan: Feeding Children to Trolls
You've probably taken a whiff of the so-called “asshole of the internet” by now. Maybe you've been Rickrolled. You might have lolled at a lolcat. You may even have been touched by Pedobear. But it's extremely likely that you have — consciously, or not — experienced one of the many memes birthed by the legion of Anon (anonymous contributors) to 4chan.org's infamous “random” subforum /b/. [...]

Some members of /b/ justify trolling as a way of exposing vulnerability. After all, if it weren't for that jerk at the parade, the emperor would still think he was wearing clothes, and that wouldn't be very good at all. But trolling isn't always that positive. It may be good for everyone to learn that the emperor is indeed naked, but do we really need to know that 13-year olds are emotionally unstable and bad at grammar? Does knowing that help the 13-year-old any? Does knowing that help us? [...]

Is the goal of trolling to breed a generation of passionless cynics? To make sincere Internet users become trolls, too? [...]

Malwebolence: The World of Web Trolling
Measured in terms of depravity, insularity and traffic-driven turnover, the culture of /b/ has little precedent. /b/ reads like the inside of a high-school bathroom stall, or an obscene telephone party line, or a blog with no posts and all comments filled with slang that you are too old to understand. [...]

In the late 1980s, Internet users adopted the word “troll” to denote someone who intentionally disrupts online communities. Early trolling was relatively innocuous, taking place inside of small, single-topic Usenet groups. The trolls employed what the M.I.T. professor Judith Donath calls a “pseudo-naïve” tactic, asking stupid questions and seeing who would rise to the bait. The game was to find out who would see through this stereotypical newbie behavior, and who would fall for it. As one guide to trolldom puts it, “If you don’t fall for the joke, you get to be in on it.”

Today the Internet is much more than esoteric discussion forums. It is a mass medium for defining who we are to ourselves and to others. Teenagers groom their MySpace profiles as intensely as their hair; escapists clock 50-hour weeks in virtual worlds, accumulating gold for their online avatars. Anyone seeking work or love can expect to be Googled. As our emotional investment in the Internet has grown, the stakes for trolling — for provoking strangers online — have risen. Trolling has evolved from ironic solo skit to vicious group hunt.

“Lulz” is how trolls keep score. A corruption of “LOL” or “laugh out loud,” “lulz” means the joy of disrupting another’s emotional equilibrium. “Lulz is watching someone lose their mind at their computer 2,000 miles away while you chat with friends and laugh,” said one ex-troll who, like many people I contacted, refused to disclose his legal identity.

Another troll explained the lulz as a quasi-thermodynamic exchange between the sensitive and the cruel: “You look for someone who is full of it, a real blowhard. Then you exploit their insecurities to get an insane amount of drama, laughs and lulz. Rules would be simple: 1. Do whatever it takes to get lulz. 2. Make sure the lulz is widely distributed. This will allow for more lulz to be made. 3. The game is never over until all the lulz have been had.” [...]

Among /b/’s more interesting spawn is Anonymous, a group of masked pranksters who organized protests at Church of Scientology branches around the world. [...]

Technology, apparently, does more than harness the wisdom of the crowd. It can intensify its hatred as well. [...]

Fortuny disagreed. In his mind, subjecting epileptic users to flashing lights was justified. “Hacks like this tell you to watch out by hitting you with a baseball bat,” he told me. “Demonstrating these kinds of exploits is usually the only way to get them fixed.” [...]

Does free speech tend to move toward the truth or away from it? When does it evolve into a better collective understanding? When does it collapse into the Babel of trolling, the pointless and eristic game of talking the other guy into crying “uncle”? Is the effort to control what’s said always a form of censorship, or might certain rules be compatible with our notions of free speech? [...]

Why inflict anguish on a helpless stranger? It’s tempting to blame technology, which increases the range of our communications while dehumanizing the recipients. Cases like An Hero and Megan Meier presumably wouldn’t happen if the perpetrators had to deliver their messages in person. But while technology reduces the social barriers that keep us from bedeviling strangers, it does not explain the initial trolling impulse. This seems to spring from something ugly — a destructive human urge that many feel but few act upon, the ambient misanthropy that’s a frequent ingredient of art, politics and, most of all, jokes. There’s a lot of hate out there, and a lot to hate as well. [...]

Many trolling practices, like prank-calling the Hendersons and intimidating Kathy Sierra, violate existing laws against harassment and threats. The difficulty is tracking down the perpetrators. In order to prosecute, investigators must subpoena sites and Internet service providers to learn the original author’s IP address, and from there, his legal identity. Local police departments generally don’t have the means to follow this digital trail, and federal investigators have their hands full with spam, terrorism, fraud and child pornography. But even if we had the resources to aggressively prosecute trolls, would we want to? Are we ready for an Internet where law enforcement keeps watch over every vituperative blog and backbiting comments section, ready to spring at the first hint of violence? Probably not. All vigorous debates shade into trolling at the perimeter; it is next to impossible to excise the trolling without snuffing out the debate. [...]

Of course, none of these methods will be fail-safe as long as individuals like Fortuny construe human welfare the way they do. As we discussed the epilepsy hack, I asked Fortuny whether a person is obliged to give food to a starving stranger. No, Fortuny argued; no one is entitled to our sympathy or empathy. We can choose to give or withhold them as we see fit. “I can’t push you into the fire,” he explained, “but I can look at you while you’re burning in the fire and not be required to help.” [...]

How to Troll 4chan!!1

The Art of Trolling: Inside a 4chan Smear Campaign
COMMENTS
Serious question: Doesn't 4chan's owner have any sense of decency? Why doesn't he do something about this?
Can't anyone do something about this?

Reply: There are hundreds of thousands of posts on 4chan on an hourly basis. For /b/, the board in question, there is a full-time staff of moderators trying to keep highly illegal content off the front page. And that's about all that can be done.

Moot can't control the group, because the group can't control the group. Think how geese migrate - there is a collective direction, and individual groups within the flock, but for the most part, it's a bunch of bird brains heading south.

11-Year-Old Viral Video Star Placed Under Police Protection
COMMENTS
Why isn't there a board dedicated to revealing the personal info of 4chan users?

Reply: there is such a board. it's called the 'party van'. and it's dedicated to bringing down teh lulz wherever it may be found. but many of these people are hiding behind 7 proxies to avoid being caught.

4chan Hackers Attack Gawker Again
COMMENTS
The disturbing thing is that this militant arm of 4Chan, with its publicly accessible /b/ board and livechat, is not the worst thing about them by a long shot. There's a hidden website associated as a branch of 4Chan that looks like a carbon copy version of 4Chan.org that's dedicated entirely to child pornography, and the members are essentially one in the same. The technology that enables them to run this website is the same that allows them to troll as they do without being found out.

Reply: Yes, there are pedophiles on 4chan, the anonymous nature of it almost guarantees that the fucked up crazies come out of the woodwork. Posting child porn on 4chan will get your IP banned, but if you use a proxy there's not much else you can do, hence they persist. But 4chan is in no way related to child pornography websites. I'm sure they share some of the same users but not as many as go to 4chan just to look at funny pictures when they're bored. There's also no technology that enables anyone to run a website devoted to child porn openly, all sites are hosted from a static IP address which is traceable to a server that hosts the content. If you know of a site like that report it to the FBI or Interpol and they can get whatever company that hosts the server or provides internet access to the server to shut it down.

Rebecca

2010-07-17T15:49:00.014-04:00

FROM RIVQAH
Evol Burritos
Review

Evil Fortune Cookies

The Rake

Tony Ward: bio
Official Site

Tony Ward & Susan Eldridge (Arena 2005)

How the Internet Beat Up an 11-Year-Old Girl
COMMENT
"Jackpot! This kid's reality tv GOLD.
Move over Kardashians and fuck The Hills - I see the future of television and it's crazier than a Palin family reunion.

BTW: When an 11-year-old sports serious cleavage in a push-up bra and low cut top, that's a hint the parents are comatose at the wheel."

WORDLES
Jessie Slaughter
Craigslist Erotic Services Ads 1 & 2
Life

DEFINITION
CHAV
Derived from Chatham in Kent, this term can be applied loosely to every culture with a nasty, thieving element. There are many variants of this creature but all are subject to the following commonalities: [...]

Mel Gibson's Rants, Visualized

Genevieve

2010-07-16T16:17:00.011-04:00

FORM OF GENEVIÈVE
COCO ROCHA

LILY COLE

DARIA WERBOWY

AGYNESS DEYN

HEIDI KLUM

GISELE BUNDCHEN

ADRIANA LIMA

Why One Model Makes it Big When Others Don't
COMMENTS
IN SOME ways the fashion world is like high school... if certain people like you, you're alright. If Wintour, Leon Talley, Meisel, Coddington, Leibowitz, Demarchelier, Testino and Gaultier really like you? Done deal.

I THINK the real question is not "How are these supermodels chosen?", but "Why do such vast numbers of girls want desperately, more than anything else, to be chosen?"

I'VE WORKED in the business a bit, though mostly not as a model. It's 99% luck. The luck to have the right genetics, the luck to be seen by the right person, the luck to the one time it matters walk perfectly and take a good photo.

There are skills involved; it's not as easy as it looks. There are also requirements like watching your weight and being able to constantly wear heels. But luck matter more than anything else. When it comes to photos and runway walking, some people are better than others but in my experience most models are sometimes good, and sometimes not-so-good and what's important is managing to be good when it matters.

If you look at a full portfolio from your average well-paid model you'll find only about 5% of her photos are super-amazing magazine cover worthy, and about 25-40% are usable. There are exceptions; some models almost always photograph well but don't make it because of the luck factor.

I know when it comes to celebrities they will be shot for hours and thousands of photos will be taken just to get the five or six that appear in the magazine. And even those need significant photoshopping to look the way they do in the final product.

Models are better in that more of the photos they take will be good, but it's very rare to find someone who always photographs well.

EVEN IN the business world, the people who "make it" usually are getting jobs for reasons that aren't directly related to their experience and qualifications. I observed several interviews that my boss conducted in hiring someone to replace me. He filtered out most of the lowest-qualified people by their resumes, so most of the job candidates were fairly interchangeable until the interview. Still, he hired a lower-qualified person basically because he talked the loudest during the interview, thus exuding confidence and amiability.

I HAVE a friend who was with the same agency as Daria just before Daria was getting all the major shows and campaigns. My friend is also beautiful, has a fantastic model body and looked great on film. But Daria made it big and my friend worked some smaller markets and did some jobs but gave it up when she realized that no matter what, she would never get as much work as Daria. She just could never really understand the why of it though.

GIVEN what Jenna says about subjectivity in determining a model's "x factor", I'd guess that gaining the backing of a fashion industry tastemaker, someone who has successfully driven trends in the past or who consistently sets industry standards, is crucial to making it big. And when I say support, I don't mean just one show or magazine cover, but full-on 'campaigning' for this model. Even if the designer or agent or editor is only going by a subjective gut instinct, their past track record lends weight to their choices. People pay attention and, as Jenna said, clamber aboard the bandwagon, which just adds momentum to a career.

MODELS are human commodities. I think the casting director really says it all when he compares casting models to choosing a chair.

AS someone who is in finance, I can totally attest to the "herd" mentality. Warren Buffett buys into a company? pile on in! (hey, please overlook that he gets a 9% coupon convertible bond and makes money in any case, and you just get plain old stock that goes up or down). Or the other way - IBM misses its earnings estimates by two pennies? DUMP DUMP DUMP!

There are tons of studies showing that when the crowds love something, it's topped out.

"TO HAVE 'It,' the fortunate possessor must have that strange magnetism which attracts both sexes. He or she must be entirely unselfconscious and full of self-confidence, indifferent to the effect he or she is producing, and uninfluenced by others. There must be physical attraction, but beauty is unnecessary." - Elinor Glyn, 1927

This is all I could think of while reading Marsh's quote about his choices being "an internal thing."

Gisele On Top
How Much Does a Supermodel Earn?
Celebs Without Makeup

Arielle

2010-07-14T13:27:00.016-04:00

FORM OF ARIEL

BARF BAG

DOUCHE

MINI PIZZAS

RETAINER

COCAINE

ROOMBA

WALK OF SHAME

iPHONE

PASTIES

VENUS

LOUIS VUITTON BONG

RECTAL THERMOMETER

MOTOR OIL

FERRARI

TASER

VIRGIN MARY

DARTH VADER

HANNIBAL LECTER

HELLO KITTY HELL: The Beginning
FAQ
You are the biggest pussy whipped guy I have ever seen. Why don’t you grow some balls and just divorce your wife?
And you, dear reader, are an ignorant idiot. You read about a tiny slice of my life and decide that from that you have the right to tell me how to live it and what I should do? Quite frankly, it’s none of your damn business, but when you agree to tell me about one part of your life and from that, I get to determine what you should do in every other aspect your life, then I’ll gladly answer this question for you.

Crystal

2010-07-13T17:38:00.014-04:00

GLASS

How We Saved Africa: The Live Aid Videos, In Order

COMMENT
"What did in fact did happen at Live Aid is there was an audio feedback disaster on the part of the sound tech and they were only band able to accept the challenge of playing live (without any ear pieces as you can see). I dare say none of the 80s "icons" with there new age sound could have done this, Mercury nailed every note without one single sound check the man defys musical ability and no one should take credit from him by accusing him of being hesitant by any means, 20mins? more like 40mins."

Mel Gibson Tells of Manic Depression
The Mel Gibson Quotable Flow Chart
I Want You, Okay?
Christian Bale & Mel Gibson Phone Fight
Mel Gibson Phone Call: Apocalypse Now