Gainful Unemployment

Month

July 2012

20 posts

“But the thing about the mannequins was that each represented, as far as was possible, a painstaking reconstruction of a particular soldier. That is, the Nazi had found a uniform and tracked down as many records of the actual soldier to whom it’d belonged. He’d identified and tracked down other possessions that belonged to the solider. He knew the soldier’s rank, his shoe size, his hair and eye color, knew exactly how many medals that particular soldier had received as well as the occasions upon which they had been awarded.” —

Matthew Vollmer | New England Review

Fascinating account of visiting a Nazi memorabilia collector’s secret stash.

Jul 24, 2012
#nazi memorabilia #history #world war 2 #ww2
“Why is it that the elite French perfumers (known as “noses”) and sommeliers (“upturned noses”) of the world spend so much of their time inhaling cat effluvia from expensive glass bottles? A guess: It may have to do with a mind-control parasite called Toxoplasma gondii. The tiny protozoan may be getting into our brains and tricking us into liking cats—not to mention certain perfumes and wines.” —

Chanel No. 5: A brain parasite may be the secret to the famous perfume. - Slate Magazine

Half-baked but interesting theory about toxo, that “mind control” cat parasite that we all talked about for 5 minutes a few months ago.

Jul 23, 2012
#perfume #chanel #civet #scent #toxo #biology
“Some entertainers don’t pay attention to what’s going on around them. They just go, “Oh, cool, I’m playing this place.” They just do it, and they take the money. But if you pay attention, you find out that the economics are very simple. If you want more money, the fans pay for it. They just pay. And so I decided, “Okay, I’m making enough. Let’s drive the ticket prices down a bit.” I decided to do that a couple years ago, especially because the economy was shitty.” —

Louis C.K. on eating pressure and providing an alternative to The Man   | Comedy | Interview | The A.V. Club

Louis C.K. So fucking punk he doesn’t even know it.

Jul 22, 20122 notes
#louis ck #comedy #economics #economy #entertainment #punk
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Jul 21, 20122 notes
#music #iggy azalea #steve aoki #hip hop #rap
Larry Eats A Pancake - Larry David - Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee → comediansincarsgettingcoffee.com

It’s anti-social media not to let people embed your video. If you care to click through, you will get to a 13 minute video of Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David going to lunch. Moments that make it worth your time are fleeting, but hey, Larry David.

Why does Jerry do the thing where he’s DYING laughing at a semi-funny joke? So irritating.

Jul 21, 2012
#comedy #humor #coffee #car #volkswagen #larry david #jerry seinfeld
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Jul 21, 201213 notes
#louis ck #daily show #comedy #humor #jokes
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Jul 13, 20123 notes
#tig notaro #comedy #standup comedy #humor #stool #conan
Jul 12, 201213 notes
#lakewood blueclaws #baseball #minor league baseball #sports #eyeballs
“

The micro-blogging website had argued that the posts belonged to activist Malcolm Harris and as such it would be violating fourth amendment privacy rights if it were to disclose the communications without first receiving a search warrant.

But a Manhattan judge ruled on Monday that under a timeline set out by federal law, a warrant is only needed for the final day’s worth of messages from Harris, who is accused of disorderly conduct in relation to a protest on the Brooklyn Bridge in October.

All other tweets prior to this date could legitimately be demanded by means of subpoena, it was ruled.

”
—

Twitter forced to release Occupy protester’s tweets to New York court | World news | guardian.co.uk

Just so you know your legal twattling rights…

Jul 11, 2012
#twitter #social media #4th amendment #privacy #free speech #occupy movement
Jul 10, 2012
#miss holocaust survivor #beauty pageants #israel #women
“You can’t meet someone until you’ve become what you’re becoming.” —

Lena Dunham Remembers Nora Ephron : The New Yorker

Nora Ephron to Lena Dunham. I think this is partly why I choose not to be attached.

Jul 9, 201213 notes
#nora ephron #lena dunham #women #advice #writers
Jul 8, 201235 notes
#frogs #animals #india #wedding
“

I went to Porter House, my favorite restaurant. I was with a woman who was not with me for free. I think she had a filet with some kind of a salad and no vegetables, and I think she had wine. I don’t drink at all. I just had unsweetened iced tea.

She didn’t charge me for dinner, because I wouldn’t pay somebody to eat with them. But as a part of the night, she was like, “Yeah, we can go out and eat first, if you want,” so I was like, “Oh, okay,” and then we went home and kind of hung out. I had her for technically an hour, but she was cool with doing something else beforehand because she was kind of familiar with me, so she didn’t mind going out and eating. So we spent probably two and a half hours together.

”
—

Comedian Jim Norton Has Salmon in New York, Uni in L.A. — Grub Street New York

Did Jim Norton say he took an escort to get steak dinner???

Jul 7, 20123 notes
#jim norton #comedy #food #dining #women
Jul 6, 20125 notes
#senegal fashion week #fashion #senegal #women
“

Starting in 2006, millions of dollars were hastily distributed to grantees to further this poverty reduction strategy. The money went to such enterprises as “Laugh Your Way America,” a program run by a non-Spanish speaking Wisconsin minister who used federal dollars to offer “Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage” seminars to Latinos. It funded Rabbi Stephen Baars, a British rabbi who’d been giving his trademarked “Bliss” marriage seminars to upper-middle-class Jews in Montgomery County, Maryland, for years. With the help of the federal government, he brought his program to inner-city DC for the benefit of African American single moms.

The marriage money was diverted from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program (formerly known as welfare), and much of it went to religious groups that went to work trying to combat the divorce rate in their communities by sponsoring date nights and romance workshops. In some cities, the local grantees used their federal funds to recruit professional athletes to make public service announcements touting the benefits of marriage. Women’s groups were especially critical of the marriage initiative, largely because it was the baby of Wade Horn, a controversial figure who Bush installed at HHS as the head of the Administration for Children and Families and the administration’s official “marriage czar.”

”
—

The GOP’s Dead-End Marriage Program | Mother Jones

Budget allocated welfare funds to marriage counseling programs that would supposedly help poor people stay married, working and off welfare. So far, it hasn’t worked.

Jul 5, 2012
#marriage #welfare #government
Jul 4, 20123 notes
#skirt #crinoline #fashion #wind
“

But there’s another explanation for why kids loved pizza Lunchables when adults didn’t. If there’s one overwhelming conclusion researchers have drawn from sensory testing about kids’ preferences, it’s that they’re crazy about sugar—a predilection that actually develops in utero. And it’s not just that kids like sweet, says Gary Beauchamp, the president and director of the Monell Chemical Senses Center; they crave it in much higher concentrations than adults do.

So it’s not just the adventure of constructing their own made-to-order (cold) pie that’s made countless kids beg their parents to send them to school with an Extra Cheesy Pizza Lunchable, including juice and Airheads candy, in tow. The combination box’s 28 grams of sugar (that’s nearly six teaspoons) probably has something to do with it, too.

”
—

Consumer taste tests for children: how food manufacturers tailor research to the very young. - Slate Magazine

Why kids consider the combo of crust, cold sauce, cold meat and cold shredded cheese to be “pizza.” Pizza Lunchables account for about 25% of all Lunchables sales.

The article, of course, doesn’t address why once-cooked cold pizza is acceptable, even coveted, by adults.

Jul 3, 20121 note
#lunchables #food #processed food #children #psychology
“

In a blog post written last year, Google explained how it planned to avoid the leap second issue by using a tactic it called a “leap smear”.

This involved incrementally adding tiny fractions of time - a couple of milliseconds - gradually over the course of a day.

“This meant that when it became time to add an extra second at midnight, our clocks had already taken this into account, by skewing the time over the course of the day,” explained Christopher Pascoe, the company’s site reliability engineer.

”
—

BBC News - Leap second and storm disrupt weekend web services

Time is malleable, smearable like butter.

Jul 3, 2012
#time #leap second #google
Jul 2, 20123 notes
#horse #cowboys #rodeo #stampede #canada
“

For a decision that could ultimately affect more than a million soldiers in the Army, reserves and National Guard, the sudden shift from Program Executive Office Soldier was a head-scratcher. The consensus among the researchers was the Army brass had watched the Marine Corps don their new uniforms and caught a case of pixilated camouflage envy.

“It was trendy,” Stewardson said. “If it’s good enough for the Marines, why shouldn’t the Army have that same cool new look?”

”
—

$5B CAMO SNAFU - The Daily

The Army spent $5 billion on pixelated camouflage gear that only really worked in gravel pits. The pattern went into production in 2004. The Army soldiers wore gear that made them stand out in their environment for 8 years.

Jul 1, 2012
#war #army #camouflage #taxpayer #tax #defense #government

June 2012

28 posts

Jun 30, 20128 notes
#cowboys #rodeo #stampede #canada
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Jun 30, 20125 notes
#louis ck #today #mainstream media #comedy #humor
“

The problem with the Happy Nakba Day joke was not that a white non-Muslim Canadian told it. The problem was that it was told at all. In Qatar, as in other Arab countries, the “catastrophe” is a crime against humanity that cannot be joked about. Halal Bilal, however, has found a way to weave an Israel joke into his routine. At the Katara show, Bilal riffed on trying to get into the Palestinian territories:

“Any Palestinians here? I wanted to go to Palestine, but to get there I had to go through Israel. I get to the border, and the Israeli soldier says to me, ‘What are you doing here?’ I was like, ‘Dude, I could ask you the same question!’ ” Then he paused. (In his notebook, Bilal had instructions to himself to look for someone in the crowd who was not laughing and make a joke about that.) Then he went on: “I lie — I actually said I’m Jewish! You’re shocked? So was he! He didn’t believe me. I said: ‘Dude, I am Jewish. I have evidence, but it’s circum-stantial.’ Get it?”

”
—

Yes, There Are Comedians in Qatar - NYTimes.com

There isn’t just one comedy. What works here doesn’t work everywhere. Starting a stand-up comedy scene from almost nothing in Qatar.

Jun 29, 2012
#comedy #standup comedy #humor #qatar #culture
Jun 28, 20126 notes
#photography #mauritania #children #balloons
“I think, in retrospect, in a very genuine way I was at the end of the rope when I started that show. I really had no other options in my life. I was very depressed. I was very broke. I didn’t have a lot of options performing-wise, because I had marginalized myself one way or the other through radio or just bad social politics. I kind of hit a wall. So I think in a very real way I needed to continue talking” —

The Believer - Interview with Marc Maron

I’m there too, painted in a corner. Isn’t much of adulthood really about weaseling out of bad decisions you made in the past, trying to make amends to yourself and to your loved ones? That and being able to eat cake and ice cream for breakfast if that’s what you want.

Very great interview with Marc Maron, whose podcast is a must-subscribe gem.

Jun 27, 20121 note
#marc maron #wtf #podcast #adulthood
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Jun 27, 2012
#louis ck #leno #comedy #humor #grey #gray
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Jun 27, 20121 note
#louis ck #comedy #humor #jokes #grey #gray
Jun 26, 2012
#cake #food #dessert #wedding cake #wedding
“The thing that I love, and I had this experience on a lesser scale when I was putting out Tiny Furniture, was that I spent so much of my time when I was younger feeling like such a weirdo that it was hard for me to imagine that anybody was sharing my experiences. And the fact I put out this thing so personal and specific, where the character is going through emotions that feel so mine, and so many girls have gone, “That’s what it’s like to be me” or “You and I are the same,” it’s really been heartening.” —

Girls season finale: Lena Dunham interviewed by Meghan O’Rourke. - Slate Magazine

As a somewhat pre-Internet fossil, I am surprised someone in her mid-20s growing up with the Internet could still feel isolated and unlike anyone else in the world.

But then again, I think people inside my computer box and phone contraption don’t count as real people, so the sense of disconnection makes sense.

Jun 25, 20121 note
#lena dunham #girls #internet #adolescence #women
Jun 24, 2012
#medicine #accident
“Furthermore, courts have acknowledged that online forums such as blogs generally create amore relaxed communication environment where statements are less likely to be understood ascontaining assertions of fact.” —

FunnyJunk — The Oatmeal Response

If you run a website, including a dinky ol’ Tumblr, you should peruse this letter The Oatmeal’s lawyer sent to FunnyJunk, who is suing The Oatmeal for defamation amongst other things. It touches upon important issues like defamation, copyright infringement, etc. 

Jun 22, 20122 notes
#law #internet #defamation #copyright #copyright infringement #legal document
Jun 21, 20121 note
#food #eating #dining #britain #british food #england #uk
“Each year in December, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) announces how much of such controlled substances may be produced in the country in the following year. For 2012, the DEA has set the quota for oxycodone at 98 million grams, or about 108 tons, and for hydrocodone at 59 million grams, or 65 tons.” —

American Pain: The Largest U.S. Pill Mill’s Rise and Fall - Businessweek

Pill quotas: did you know about this? If you’ve wondered about “urgent care” or “wellness center” clinics in strip malls, read this piece.

Jun 20, 2012
#pills #addiction #dea #quota #opiates #crime
“[On a hill,] a sheep that had no wool saw horses, one of them pulling a heavy wagon, one carrying a big load, and one carrying a man quickly. The sheep said to the horses: “My heart pains me, seeing a man driving horses”. The horses said: “Listen, sheep, our hearts pain us when we see this: a man, the master, makes the wool of the sheep into a warm garment for himself. And the sheep has no wool”. Having heard this, the sheep fled into the plain.” —

Schleicher’s fable - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Schleicher’s fable in a proto Indo-European language appears in Prometheus when David studies ancient languages.

For most of my adult life, I feel like the sheep, shorn of wool, fleeing into the plain.

Jun 19, 2012
#prometheus #language #fable
“

In 2008, the Hershey Company began to change the ingredients for some of its products, replacing the relatively expensive cocoa butter with cheaper oil substitutes. Such cost cutting was done to avoid price increases for the affected products.

Hershey’s changed the description of the product and altered the packaging slightly along with the ingredients. Though the new formula still contains chocolate, according to United States Food and Drug Administration food labeling laws, products that do not contain cocoa butter cannot legally be described as milk chocolate. Instead, such products are often referred to as chocolate candy.

Other products that no longer contain cocoa butter (and thus cannot, in the United States, be described as containing milk chocolate) include: Hershey’s Kissables, Krackel, Milk Duds, and Mr. Goodbar.

”
—

Whatchamacallit (candy) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

How chocolate candy bars cannot be called “milk chocolate” as per food labeling rules.

Jun 17, 2012
#chocolate #milk chocolate #food #labeling #fda #cocoa butter
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Jun 16, 20127 notes
#prometheus #david #android #robot #science fiction #future #artificial intelligence
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Jun 15, 20128 notes
#john waters #art #humor
“‘See you in Basel, bitch.’ Art is like joining a biker gang; you have to wear a certain outfit and learn a certain lingo. It’s a special club.” —

Frieze Magazine | Archive | Experience & Innocence

Rule in life: read every John Waters interview you come across.

Jun 14, 2012
#john waters #art #bikers #gangs
“

Eddie: Well, the crux of the issue for me is this… Immigrants, my parents and myself included, are exposed to years of ridicule. I was made fun of for my stinky lunch upwards of 10 years. Immigrants of our parents’ generation have largely given up any hope that Americans will like their food.

Francis: Word.

Eddie: Then, to have these CIA grads come through, repackage the food, and sell it back to me at a premium is just ludicrous.

”
—

Is it Fair for Chefs to Cook Other Cultures’ Foods?

Conversation between food writer Francis Lam and chef Eddie Huang about immigrant food and fancyfying immigrant food to suit American upper middle class palates.

Jun 13, 2012
#food #dining #fine dining #immigrants #cuisine #assimilation #class
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Jun 12, 20121 note
#siouxie sioux #siouxie and the banshees #hong kong gardens #music #girls
“The Southwest Research Institute and other like-minded groups are planning a string of bake sales (and car washes) on Saturday in a rather endearing PR stunt aimed at protesting the Obama administration’s proposed 2013 NASA budget cuts, which the spacy agency says will shrink its planetary science division by 20 percent.” —

NASA Bake Sale: Scientists, students to stage bake sale to protest proposed budget cuts.

Space bake sale!! Government agencies should be required to raise a certain percentage of their budget via bake sale or car wash, just so they don’t get too comfortable with our tax monies. 

Jun 11, 2012
#nasa #government #budget #bake sale #car wash #protest #obama
“I think with Stringer, I brought an English sensibility to an American character, and with Luther, I bring American sensibilities to an English character. Stringer, on the page, he read like the consigliore, the man next to the man. But I sophisticated Stringer up with how subtle he was. Luther — he’s way bigger [in his reactions] than an English cop would ever be. He’s very American-esque in that way. I think part of the TV show’s popularity in England is that it’s sort of ridiculous to see an Englishman that big in a lot of these scenes.” —

Idris Elba on Prometheus, Learning to Box, and His Party House — Vulture

A nice, long Idris Elba interview. Stringer Bell is one of my most beloved fictional characters. Each new bit of information about him resurrects him in my mind.

Jun 10, 20128 notes
#idris elba #stringer bell #luther #acting #television #bbc #hbo #the wire
Jun 10, 20122 notes
#salvador dali #dante #inferno #art #fine art #surrealism #litreature #classics
Jun 10, 20121 note
#salvador dali #dante #divine comedy #classics #literature #art #fine art #surrealism
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Jun 7, 2012
#django unchained #quentin tarantino #movies #cinema #western
“Some Dum Dums have wrappers with question marks where the flavor is normally printed. This was a marketing idea that made the production process run more smoothly and made eating Dum Dums more fun. The Mystery Flavor pop is a mixture of two flavors that come together when the end of one batch of candy meets the beginning of the next batch. Rather than shutting down to clean out the candy equipment between flavors, Spangler turned lemons into lemonade and made pops out of the combination of flavors” —

What Is the Mystery Flavor of Dum Dums? - Mental Floss

Whenever a mystery is solved, there is a bit of relief and a little more sadness. What does a relief and sadness Dum Dum taste like?

Jun 6, 20122 notes
#dum dum #food #candy #mystery
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Jun 4, 201210 notes
#jay reatard #deerhunter #fluorescent grey #garage rock #goner #music #punk #garage punk
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Jun 3, 20122 notes
#guided by voices #bob pollard #music #indie rock #college rock #teenage fbi #do the collapse
“What I mean by that is I think a lot of what enabled Woody to be a director and to learn the craft of directing as quickly as he did — and regardless of how anybody measures this in time, he did learn quickly — I think part of what permitted him to do that was that he had done stand-up for such a long time. Because what stand-up does to you — I like the way I say this, as though I had done a lot of stand-up myself, but it makes sense — is that someone who has to respond on the spot to how the audience is reacting should be able to do likewise on the set. Onstage, he can milk a moment if the moment is working and, if it’s not working, he realizes he has to let go of that and go someplace else.” —

Louis C.K.’s New Louie Editor Susan E. Morse Compares Him to Her Old Boss, Woody Allen — Vulture

Actually, it’s more like Vulture trying to shoehorn comparisons as much as possible…but a good read anyway if you are a Woody Allen and Louis CK fan.

May 31, 20121 note
#woody allen #louis ck #comedy #humor #standup comedy #standup

May 2012

29 posts

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May 27, 20123 notes
#renegade soundwave #blue eyed boy #soundclash #hip hop #dub #music
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