Intertextual.org

"Semantics aside, I’ve never once known the overall tax burden to decline, even if individual income..."

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 12:21:48 -0800

“Semantics aside, I’ve never once known the overall tax burden to decline, even if individual income taxes have been temporarily reduced, it’s just an accounting trick (or shell game) to shift the tax load to hide the truth from the electorate. Meanwhile, we all end up paying through the nose.”

- (Tim Tipper)

"The roots of technology go deeper than just human culture. They weave and string all the way back to..."

Sun, 10 Jan 2010 14:19:39 -0800

“The roots of technology go deeper than just human culture. They weave and string all the way back to the Big Bang. Technology is an example—like life and intelligence—of an extropic system, a system that feeds off entropy to build order. And not just order, but self-amplifying order of exploding complexity and depth. Extropic systems create even more entropy in the process—that is, energy runs through the system at a faster and denser pace. This is the definition of self-sustaining systems like a living organism. There’s continuity from the beginning of the universe, which is expanding out and creating space to allow diversity to flourish.”

- Tending the Garden of Technology | Orion Magazine

Awesome. (mikerivera)

Fri, 08 Jan 2010 17:44:03 -0800

Awesome. (mikerivera)

hereblog: nihilistidealist: Horse Head Nebula

Fri, 01 Jan 2010 21:19:06 -0800

hereblog:

nihilistidealist: Horse Head Nebula

Do's and Don'ts of being happy

Fri, 01 Jan 2010 21:14:33 -0800

finitesunrise:

You’re cute and I think you’re interested in me. If you weren’t a walking time bomb I’d totally go for you.

Lately I’m the poster child for living life to be happy, so I can’t really date someone who constantly puts themself down.

And WHAT THE FACK? Is “themself” not a word? Because every single time I type that my computer basically goes “Surprise. You’re retarded.” Google says it’s a word. Kind of. I guess I’ll trust Google. I mean, since it’s basically God these days.

No but really, why can’t yall just be happy? I mean, I’ve been there. That whole not-thinking-you’re-attractive thing. The whole thinking-your-life-could-totally-be-better thing. The constantly-complaining-about-being-lonely-but-not-actually-ever-doing-anything-productive-to-fix-that.

SO I’m basically going to give you a birthday present right now. Oh yeah, surprise, it’s your birthday.

I’m going to write a handbook for you right now about the do’s and don’ts of life. So here you go:

Do talk about what you know and what you love.

Don’t talk about what you don’t like (especially around new friends.) No one likes a negative nancy and finding out your new friend hates something you love is a huge turn off.

Do have fun wherever you go.

Don’t rely on other people to have said fun.

Do live life for yourself and only yourself

Don’t trick yourself into thinking you’re a better person because you want love and will make yourself look like an idiot to get it.

Do flirt with someone you like

Don’t care enough about them to let the fact that they say “no” affect you.

Do surround yourself with other happy people, especially ones you’re not prone to fight with.

Don’t take any fights you DO have with said-friends too seriously. Your life is not a soap opera.

Do stop hanging out with people that cause you unneeded stress, even if they were once your closest friends.

Don’t cling to stale relationships/friendships. It’s only going to make both parties miserable and, many times, the relationship will only go back to normal if you give it space.

Do your own thing regardless of whether others are doing it or not.

Don’t feel the need to constantly surround yourself with people. When someone sees someone else being perfectly content doing their own thing, they will want to do it as well. Hence: trendsetters.

Do care more about what you think than what everyone else thinks.

Don’t suffocate people with your presence. If you invite yourself everywhere people are going to feel forced to be around you. However, if you’re barely ever there they’ll have a much more positive image of you, and they’ll wish you were there.

Do be happy all the time. Everyone ultimately wants to be happy, so if they see someone that always appears to be having fun in life, they’ll want to be around that person more so they can “learn their secret.”

Don’t let shyness prevent you from having fun. Everyone is secretly insecure about what people think about them. You can go up to anyone in your school and strike up a conversation, and I bet you that they will chat right back.

Do let yourself have special moments with people. Romantic or otherwise.

Don’t let some moments be more than a moment. That’s how relationships/friendships turn stale. Everything has an expiration date.

Do accept that things change.

Don’t let things like your boyfriend cheating on you, or your best friend lying to you, or some guy not liking you back bring you down. If your boyfriend is a cheater then he was always going to cheat on you. Your best friend was always going to lie to you. The guy was never going to like you. So why worry yourself with it? It’s how the book is written, and the story clearly didn’t end there since you’re not dead.

Do make jokes out of bad situations.

Don’t make bad situations worse than they are by taking them too seriously. Especially if the situation does not involve you.

Do let yourself be happy when you’re single. Not being tied down can be excellent and once you actually get into a relationship, you may find out that you don’t like it all that much.

Don’t convince yourself that it’s impossible to stop liking someone. It’s very possible to stop. I’ve done it before.

Do go on ACTUAL DATES before rushing into a relationship with someone. If you go on dates before the actual relationship, you’re basically testing the waters to make sure the relationship will indeed work. If you find out it doesn’t, then no harm and no foul. You can still be friends and there’s no awkward “we broke up” conversation with every single person you’re friends with. A lot of people also make the mistake of just asking a person to be their boyfriend/girlfriend and then never physically going out with them, which is the entire point of the relationship.

Don’t date for the title of “In A Relationship”

Do keep yourself level-headed at all times.

Don’t let yourself ever get carried away in a fight.

Do talk about your good qualities. It may sometimes come off as “conceited” but as long as you’re talking about something you like about yourself that you worked to get then there’s absolutely no problem with it. You worked for it, you deserve the praise. Well done.

Don’t complain about your bad qualities. As much as it’s tempting to insult yourself so that others will compliment you, it also makes everyone notice your bad qualities even more. The more you call yourself fat, the more everyone notices your gut.

Do be optimistic

Don’t be cynical. As I stated at the beginning, no one likes a negative nancy. No one at all.

That’s all I can think of for now, but they’re all tried and true methods.

"It’s hard to be someone who falls in love with the logic of a thing— because the purity..."

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 14:58:28 -0800

“It’s hard to be someone who falls in love with the logic of a thing— because the purity of the thought outlasts the point where it is probable, outlasts the point where it is likely, and even outlasts the point where it is possible. In the end, there’s just the frustration of this thing that only existed in your head and you wonder if it was a failing in you, that it did not come into being.”

"I’ve been of the firm belief that there are two sides to the coin of health care: 1.) Life..."

Sat, 29 Aug 2009 10:17:34 -0700

“

I’ve been of the firm belief that there are two sides to the coin of health care: 1.) Life extension by curing (or at least treating) disease, and 2.) death extension by continuing treatments that simply will not change the outcome - death.

The problem is these two don’t have a fixed point where one becomes the other.

”

- Cipher, I in response to: We Already Ration Health Care, We Just Do It Badly

(via quietbrava : fuckyeahcarburetors : loudpop :...

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 11:32:30 -0700

(via quietbrava : fuckyeahcarburetors : loudpop : flickr (Photographer unclear))

I want one. (via mfs : greekalicious :...

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 11:29:27 -0700

I want one. (via mfs : greekalicious : caleyhustle : jrsln : jesssie)

Yeah me and my co-worker can be a little wierd at times...

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 11:25:25 -0700

Tyler E. West: Do you think a sailing theme (for the blog) would be appropriate for Carl Sailer's personality, if it's not tooooo "boaty"?
Joelle Silva: I think it would be cool . . . the blog is called Smooth Sailing, after all.
Tyler E. West: k, i just wanna be careful that it doesn't look like a blog about sailing lol
Tyler E. West: That's a nice winch: http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-8234206-boat-winch.php
Tyler E. West: I like this photo. It makes reference to sailing without hittig you in the face: http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-5588640-old-navy.php
Tyler E. West: but that's still a nice winch
Tyler E. West: http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-4594116-pulley-block-from-an-old-wooden-sail-boat.php
Tyler E. West: Think the boats are sailer towards her or away? lol http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-6191279-woman-daydreaming.php
Joelle Silva: lol
Tyler E. West: i don't know but I think he wants her booty: http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-6601056-pirate-looking-in-to-the-distance.php
Tyler E. West: This is awesome: http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-4841724-faventibus-ventis.php
Tyler E. West: that's one classy winch
Tyler E. West: mmmmmmgooooodd: http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-852130-quill-inkwell-1.php
Tyler E. West: W00t! i gots my graphics tablet today!
Joelle Silva: WOOOOOOT!!!
Tyler E. West: Yeah! I'm gonna have to bring it on monday and show it off to ya
Tyler E. West: I'm hungary. growl growl
Joelle Silva: OMG, growling at me. from a foreign country no less . . . (hungary)

Interesting Google Tools For Watching Trends

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 11:32:45 -0700

Thanks, Michael, for the great list. You’re right… this business is a lot like playing the stock market =) We should expand this with other trend monitoring resources and techniques.

michaelphipps:

Yesterday, I had the urge to explore the viability of marketing to trends. It appears that some of the tools Google provides to watch trends have changed recently, so here’s a quick list:

Google Zeitgeist - this list used to contain the most popular searches for each year. It seems this has been replaced by some new tools

Google Trends - A broad look at search query data. You can enter up to five search terms and see their relative popularity over time. This great for deciding which keywords you want to use in your advertising, and can show you if any terms are increasing or decreasing in popularity.

Trends for Websites - Shows traffic data for a website. Type in a URL to see visitors by region and related sites visited. Great for selecting what websites to advertise on, because it shows ACTUAL performance data. Looks like it uses Alexa data in the background.

Insights for Search - This is a big like Google Trends on steroids. It offers the ability to get more specific information on the search terms you are interested in, including most popular and fastest risng queries.

Hot Trends - Top 100 fastest-rising search queries in the US right now. This list almost changes before your eyes. Yesterday it was quite a good cross-section of the web. Today it is dominated by searches on one particular topic (someone famous died)

I believe if you can move REALLY quickly it would be possible to watch the Hot Trends, and push relevant advertising out directly aimed at those trends. The fact that the trends move SO quickly mean that if you are selling a product it really needs to attract highly impulsive buyers.

Most of these trends are from people seeking more information, so assembling as much information on the topic of the moment, and then publishing it to a website with impression based advertising is probably the smartest and easiest way to make money.

I think it is less likely you could use the trends to sell a product quickly, however, in the past I have seen a quick thinking individual use trends and link them to matching products via an affiliate program.

Trend marketing could be highly lucrative, provided you have the ability to move with the trends as quickly as they change.

What do you think?

This is equal parts wierd, hot and frightenin. I think I’m...

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 10:32:44 -0700

This is equal parts wierd, hot and frightenin. I think I’m in love.

Creepy/Hot/Amazing pic of the day… “Page 56 - Chesire Cat” by (via Battledress)

Bahahaha. No-one’s ever tested me this way…

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 09:54:35 -0700

Bahahaha. No-one’s ever tested me this way…

This is cool. But, I hope no-one ever get’s a bug up their...

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 13:48:47 -0700

This is cool. But, I hope no-one ever get’s a bug up their arse to make one of these for milk.

Polish Forrest House. (via MetaLab)

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 12:43:32 -0700

Polish Forrest House. (via MetaLab)

karenh: cute. Snow Bird Shelf by Marisko Studio (via...

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 18:58:58 -0700

karenh:

cute.

Snow Bird Shelf by Marisko Studio

(via hunsonisgroovy)

(via suigintou.desudesudesu.org)

Thu, 21 May 2009 12:28:51 -0700

(via suigintou.desudesudesu.org)

Peugeot Capsule on the Behance Network If this vehicle prototype...

Thu, 21 May 2009 12:22:15 -0700

Peugeot Capsule on the Behance Network

If this vehicle prototype doesn’t make you want to get outdoors I don’t know what will.

Big Ideas Come In Small Packages Ogilvy uses recession to...

Thu, 21 May 2009 11:49:00 -0700

Big Ideas Come In Small Packages

Ogilvy uses recession to it’s advantage with high-impact, undersized business card messages.

Oh my god you guys let’s gtfooh! (via homecoming)

Fri, 08 May 2009 10:15:33 -0700

Oh my god you guys let’s gtfooh! (via homecoming)