Matt "Metafilter" Haughey's got a new election-season pass-time: he's taking photos that GOP politicians post of themselves holding guns and replacing the BFGs with massive sex-toys, exposing a deep and comic truth.
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Trina Merry (previously) has created "Lost in Wonder," a series of trompe l'oeil photos in which painted models are posed against many of the world's great wonders, vanishing into the background.
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In Toxic Workers , a new Harvard Business School working paper, Michael Housman and Dylan Minor look at the paradox of "superstar" workers who outperform their colleagues by 2:1 or more, but who are "toxic" -- awful to work with and be around.
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This is one of those “put it here so I can refer to it in the future” things that Scalzi taught me:
Authors (and other creative people) I love that you want to promote your work – we all need to promote our work – but asking people to send a person (in this case, me) tons of messages asking a person (in this case, me) to read your book is not the good idea you think it is.
Your fans are passionate and they love you, and that is awesome! But when you mobilize them to go to a single person, you end up flooding that person … and speaking for myself, it’s annoying. My inbox and messages are full of people saying essentially the same thing, and that’s … well, it’s spammy.
I know your intentions are good, and I also want you to know that this sort of thing happens all too often to me, and I have a general policy of not reading/buying/seeing/reblogging/retweeting whatever it is, because I don’t want to open that door to other people in the future.
You are much better off reaching out directly to someone like me – I’m accessible, I make what I like and don’t like really clear, and I have always championed and supported artists who are getting their work out there. This sort of campaign may work for like Oprah or Ellen or Fallon, because they’re basically a corporation. But I’m just one dude, using the Internet and our social networks to entertain myself, share stuff I like, and be a regular person. When I get flooded with stuff, even stuff that is coming from a well-intentioned place, it wrecks the experience for me.
Publix, the fastest-growing grocery chain in America, isn’t a
corporate giant that exploits workers, but an employee-owned company
that’s more profitable than any of its competitors.
Unlike Walmart’s hourly workers, who just got a raise to $9 and $10 an hour,
Publix workers get a piece of the company after putting in 1,000 hours
and working for the company for over a year. Each employee-owner takes
home an additional 8.5 percent of their take-home pay every year in
stock options. According to Forbes,
58,000 of the company’s 159,000 workers are on track to become owners,
and the company makes sure each potential owner gets a broad sense of
the business by rotating them through its grocery sector, distribution
network, and real estate division.
This year, Publix was ranked as one of FORTUNE’s top 100 companies to work
based on an anonymous employee survey, which asks questions based on
pay and benefits, working conditions, communication with management, and
diversity. Publix is only one of 12 companies to be consistently listed
by employees as a top place to work every year since the list’s
inception in 1998. But Publix isn’t dominant in just the grocery
industry — its pharmacies are also consistently outperforming top
pharmacies. A 2013 Marketforce survey of customers at CVS, Walgreens, Rite Aid, and Publix rated Publix as providing the most satisfying customer experience.
That high rating by customers is the driving force behind Publix’s
success. CEO Todd Jones — who was a Publix bagger in the late 1960s —
told Forbes the company’s success depends on keeping customers happy. In
2007, Publix ranked first in the same American Consumer Satisfaction Index that ranked Walmart last.
“We believe that there are three ways to differentiate: service,
quality and price,” Jones said. “You’ve got to be good at two of them,
and the best at one. We make service our number one, then quality and
then price.”
To take supply-side economists at their word, a company that puts so
much time and money into customer service, and shares profits so
recklessly with so many workers, would mean they’re going broke, right?
In comparison to the biggest grocery store chains, Publix is the most profitable, posting $27.5 billion in 2012 revenue,
and profit margins of 5.6 percent that same year. When compared to
Walmart’s 3.8 percent margins, along with Kroger, which only made
margins of 1.6 percent, Publix is eating its competition for lunch. Even
though Walmart pulls 16 times more in annual revenue, the
employee-owned chain still has over $100 million more in cash and investments on its balance sheet ($6.8 billion) than Walmart ($6.7 billion).
And despite the company’s altruistic actions toward workers and
customers, it still manages to provide lower prices than Walmart. This
2012 chart shows prices of essential items at Publix and Walmart, and
shows how much Publix shoppers save by not spending their money at
Walmart:
Whether or not Publix will become the premiere grocery chain in America
remains to be seen. But what the company has proven beyond all doubt is
that conventional wisdom degrading employee ownership of a company as
bad for business is just a myth.
The Wal-Mart near us has lower prices than publix by a small margin, but it’s almost negligible even for us (we are very poor) and publix DEFINITELY has better quality and selection.
I’m glad to hear they’re apparently such a good company as well!
To take supply-side economists at their word, a company that puts so
much time and money into customer service, and shares profits so
recklessly with so many workers, would mean they’re going broke, right?
It’s almost like supply-side economics is a load of horseshit, and everyone knows it.
In a Double Fine double-bill, look, it’s the first trailer for Day of the Tentacle Remastered [official site]! Yes, yes, the main feature of Double Fine’s weekend announcements was Full Throttle Remastered, but that’s not due until 2017. DotT Remastered, however, will be coming in March 2016, sez this trailer. Here, check out how the redrawn art looks in motion:
Growing up, I remember my parents never letting us have Asian food on December 7th. They were children of WWII.
So that’s how Republicans get made, boys and girls — by learning that nonsensical associations are truth. There are more Asians than just the Japanese, you know: the Chinese were our allies in that war. We were also at war with the Germans and the Italians…no word on whether the Erickson family also boycotted sausage and spaghetti. And, of course, the “Asian” food his family would have bought would have been grown and cooked by Americans.
It’s silly. With a name like his, his family should have refused instead to drink Guinness on the anniversary of the Battle of Clontarf (23 April 1014), like all of us good Scandinavian-Americans.
Erickson followed up with an accusation that we’re upset.
Leftists upset my parents wanted us to avoid Asian food on Pearl Harbor Day when we were growing up. Didn’t realize it was that big a deal
You know, European Commission, pregnancy is not usually considered a disease, and it’s awfully patronizing of you to make health decisions for people you haven’t met, and for whom you have no knowledge of their actual medical condition.
What’s next? Will you decide to withdraw invitations to scientists who are too fat, too old, who are afraid of flying? Do you only make executive decisions about the health of speakers who are women? Have you considered asking invited men about the status of their families? Oh, you can’t come, your wife is 7 months pregnant and you should stay home to help her; no, no, you’ve got two young children, it would be irresponsible of us to ask you to part from them for a few days, they desperately need you.
I can pretty much guarantee those scenarios never happen.
There’s a general principle involved here, that we should allow people to make their own reasonably well-informed health decisions. Except, apparently, in the case of women, who are too innocent and childlike to be trusted with their own bodies.
One of the things I’ve gotten better at with respect to being a grown up (apparently) is trying to anticipate things that are going to be hard for me and plan ahead for them. But it doesn’t mean that those things aren’t going to suck. Putting on a coat doesn’t make it any less bitterly cold outside, and getting stitches doesn’t undo the injury. Sometimes it feels like I put a lot of effort into feeling shitty in a slightly less destructive way than I might otherwise. But, like I said, that’s adulting for you.
Shameful. Disgraceful. Unprofessional. Repellent. That’s my opinion of our media vultures.
A mob of idiots with cameras rushed into the apartment of the San Bernardino killers, and went on air vapidly commenting on the mundane crap they found. Oh, look: they have a calendar on the wall. The dullard back in the studio wants to know what kind of computer they have. Here’s an uncashed check for $7.98. Let’s go rifle through the child’s toy box.
Fucking christ. These are not journalists, or reporters, or even rational human beings. They are poison on the profession. Fire every single one of the people milling about in that apartment, the studio nitwits giving them advice, and the network executives who approved this mess. They should be embarrassed.
I have kept the cable and broadcast news off for the last few days, because this is what I expect from them.
The single most frequently asked (possibly rhetorical but I’ve never let that stop me before) question in regards to the sweet recipes on this site is “How do you not eat all of these?” And I finally have an answer: They’re not rugelach. I love chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, I think snickerdoodles are wildly underrated, but rugelach — those impossibly flaky Central European crescent cookies — are the single item in the category of foods that are just not allowed to be here ever, because there’s something about the glorious harmony of it all (the salty cheese, the tart jam, the cinnamon aroma, the crunch, and if you love your people, the chocolate, gaaah) that it will not be safe with me. Or I will not be safe with it. Which is unfortunate, because I have an avalanche of rugelach in my apartment right now.
Beautiful work from Redditor navidj. You can buy the patterns at SpaceNavid's Etsy store.
Pluto uses 35 colors, Neptune uses 24, and Jupiter 20. The materials are very affordable. Each thread costs around 40 cents or so. The black Aida cloth is about $5 for a roll and you can make at least 4 planets at this size with that.
The secretly negotiated Trans Pacific Partnership is 2,000 pages' worth of regulatory favors for various industries, but one that stands out as particularly egregious is the ban on rules requiring source-code disclosure.
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Let's Encrypt is a joint project from EFF, Mozilla and others that allows anyone to create a free HTTPS certificate in minutes, this being a critical piece of infrastructure, necessary for making connections between a web-server and a browser secure and private.
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If a person is religious, then of course they pray, because that’s what religion teaches us to do.
The problem is that politicians who are bought by the NRA are ignoring the public health crisis we have with gun violence, and hiding behind hopes and prayers to avoid actually doing anything.
I’m not religious, but my friend who is referred me to this: “I hide my eyes from you; even when you offer many prayers, I am not listening. Your hands are full of blood! —Isaiah 1:15“ What I take from that is an admonishment to back up thoughts and prayers with action, or find yourself with blood on your hands.
So sincerely praying and hoping for peace? Awesome.
Using it as a platitude to give the appearance of doing something while actually doing nothing? Shameful.
If the sticker is missing, so is the phone number to report that the sticker is missing. Someone working for the state of Florida is a closet Situationist. How else can you explain this self-referential sticker, which seems to have no purpose? I'm sure there is another explanation, but I don't want to know what it is.
[via]
Melia is a lecturer in transport and planning at the University of the West of England who's worked on such high-profile projects as the transport links to London's Olympic Park. Urban Transport is a book about one of the most important, worst-understood and evidence-free areas of public policy: how we move ourselves and our goods around the places where we live.
From aviation to surface vehicles, passenger transportation is one of the most significant contributors to greenhouse gases. The design of cities has enormous implications for how we get about them, as do public transportation subsidies, parking prices, zoning and traffic rules.
Melia's goal is to set out the evidence-based best practices for increasing public transportation, cycling and walking as alternatives to private cars, which he characterises as both environmentally unsustainable and unable to scale to the high density cities that are emerging all around the world. Although the last part of the book focuses on policy recommendations for the UK, most of the book is applicable to cities around the world (a forthcoming volume deals with the USA specifically).
Melia's research doesn't just take aim at the blithely asserted, evidence-free idea that building car-friendly roads and parking is "good for the economy" (an idea he demolishes with satisfying thoroughness), but also at some environmental orthodoxies, like the idea that mixing cars, pedestrians and bikes produces more livable cities (this idea came from an influential Dutch planner who was not trying to reduce car usage), and the idea that public transport, especially buses, will, on its own, reduce car usage.
The problem with faster, cheaper public transport on its own is that it primarily substitutes for walking and cycling, not driving. Only disincentives for driving, such as "permeable" one-way systems that let buses/trams, pedestrians and cyclists get around faster than private vehicles; high-cost, limited parking; and similar measures can be shown to consistently reduce the number of trips taken by drivers.
Following Wednesday afternoon’s mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, which left at least 14 people dead, numerous lawmakers tweeted their “thoughts and prayers” to the victims of the gruesome tragedy. But many of the same congresspeople who were quick to publicly register their feelings about the 352nd mass shooting this year, received thousands of dollars from the National Rifle Association and voted against sensible gun reforms like expanding background checks to more gun purchases.
Rijksmuseum, an arts and history museum located in the heart of Amsterdam, is asking visitors to put down their cameras and pick up a pen next time they enter the museum’s walls. Rijksmuseum’s new campaign #startdrawing wants to slow down observers, encouraging attendees to draw sculptures and paintings that interest them rather than snapping a picture and moving on to the next work in quick succession.
By slowing down the process of observation, the visitor is able to get closer to the artist’s secrets, the museum explains, engaging with each work by actively doing instead of passively capturing. “In our busy lives we don’t always realize how beautiful something can be,” said Wim Pijbes, the general director of the Rijksmuseum. “We forget how to look really closely. Drawing helps because you see more when you draw.” The museum has begun to highlight drawings completed by participants on their Instagram as well as their blog associated with the campaign here.
Banning cameras (or softly dissuading attendees from using them) is also a way to bring the focus from the selfie an attendee may take with a work of art to the masterpiece before them. A perfectly timed exhibition titled “Selfies on Paper” is currently on display in the museum — 90 self-portraits from well known artists from the 17th to 20th century spread through each floor of the museum. The exhibition shows how artists captured themselves on paper while acting as a challenge to those who might have thought selfie sticks were the only tool appropriate for self preservation. “Selfies on Paper” will run though the winter. (via Hyperallergic)
<insert vague and futile expression of hope that this tragic crime will finally motivate government to crack down on the folly, a hope that will never be fulfilled and will only produce more cynicism and despair>
Rush Hour Shift is an entertaining twist on the classic get-the-car-unstuck logic game. Instead of a single player working through pre-designed puzzles, now there are two players working against each other in a constantly changing landscape. The manual includes instructions for ten basic board set-ups to start. Following these instructions, players are positioned at opposite ends of the board while cars of different sizes and colors are placed between them. The object of the game is to get your car (Silver versus Gold) to the other side of the board.
Each player is dealt four cards, and on your turn you play one of your cards and do what it says. There are four card types: Move, Shift, Slide, and Move & Shift. Move cards allow you to move any car (except your opponent’s car) the number of squares indicated on the card. You can also strategically split up the number among cars, so if you play a three you could move one car two spaces and another car one space, or you could move three cars one space. Shift cards allow you to move the board itself, and this is probably the coolest aspect of the game. The game board is built with three interlocking pieces, and when you play a shift card you can move either of the end pieces as far as you want. So you can literally remove the path from your opponent so they have nowhere to go. Slide cards allow you to move as many spaces you want until something blocks your path. If you’ve strategically cleared space in front of your car, you could theoretically cross the entire board in one move. Move & Shift cards allow you to both shift the board AND move a number of spaces. Using these cards in creative combinations will advance your card across the board while impeding your opponent's success.
This game is actually very challenging. As soon as you think you have the perfect strategy to win the game, your opponent can play a shift card and move the board right out from under you. Since you have the ability to split up movement between cars, it’s possible to move yourself a small number of spaces while constantly putting cars in front of your opponent. The game has enough chance elements in it that it’s a fairly balanced game. Anyone who understands the basics of the cards has a solid chance of winning. The fun and the challenge is in adapting to the changes your opponent will throw at you.
– Alex Strine
Brian Kilmeade interviews Donald Trump. You can stop right there, you say. That is just too much stupid to be borne. You would be right to stop reading now. Don’t click to go on to the next page. Do not click that link.
You’ll regret it if you do.
Last chance! Turn back now! You’ll be happier if you just go read some webcomics instead.
You’re still reading? What the fuck is wrong with you?
OK, as long as you understand the principle of informed consent, you may continue. The safeword is any kind of gurgled, choking scream.
“I like to do one thing at a time,” Trump told Fox News host Brian Kilmeade. “I would knock the hell out of ISIS.”
“What about civilian casualties?” Kilmeade wondered.
“One of the problems that we have and one of the reasons we’re so ineffective, they’re using them as shields,” Trump explained.
According to the GOP hopeful, President Barack Obama was waging “a very politically correct war.”
“With the terrorists, you have to take out their families,” Trump said. “When you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families.”
“They care about their lives, don’t kid yourself. But they say they don’t care about them. You have to take out their families.”
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
One of our presidential candidates is now saying that it is “politically correct” to try to avoid butchering small children (not that Obama has been particularly good at avoiding that). He has just announced his intent to slaughter whole families in the Middle East if elected president.
Trump is not fascist primarily because he lacks any kind of coherent, or even semi-coherent, ideology. What he represents instead is the kind of id-driven feral politics common to the radical right, a sort of gut-level reactionarism that lacks the rigor and absolutism, the demand for ideological purity, that are characteristic of full-bore fascism.
He’s not literally a fascist, despite the fact that his policies will have fascist outcomes. He’s too stupid to be a fascist.
But if you’re wondering where this came from, or where it may lead…
It is by small steps of incremental meanness and viciousness that we lose our humanity. The Nazis, in the end, embodied the ascension of utter demonic inhumanity, but they didn’t get that way overnight. They got that way through, day after day, attacking and demonizing and urging the elimination of those they deemed their enemies.
In the future imagined by Polish builder Jerac, the younger generation cruise around in yellow hovercrafts while the ‘dad-taxi’ family car looks a little bit cooler than your average Toyota.
Firstly, we have the Aeris, the 4-person family car for collecting the groceries and taking the kids to the movies. Even Jerac has to admit that this is “slightly more luxurious” than the average family car (they must be from the nicer side of the City). Honestly, I’m not trying to sell you this car, but take a look at the rear – the building techniques used are fantastic!
Next, we have the Athame, a hovercraft aimed at the cool kids who yearn for a sportier, faster, more eye-catching ride. This hovercraft has the added adrenaline rush of a transparent floor – definitely not for the feint-hearted. I love the shaping of the front, very nice curves.
Sadly, the exuberance of youth means that the Athame is sometimes exposed to more ‘aggressive driving manoeuvres’ and the resulting vehicle breakdown requires a futuristic rescue truck. Here we have the Cobbergoot Hoverlift-3. The Hovlift-3 has a great extendable lift at the back, to cater for even the largest of future hovercrafts, and collapses neatly to allow a more streamlined look when not it use.
Despite being a (relative) ‘youth’, I think I will stick with the luxurious Aeris as my future car. That transparent floor on the Athame is just too much excitement for me…
Melia is a lecturer in transport and planning at the University of the West of England who's worked on such high-profile projects as the transport links to London's Olympic Park. Urban Transport is a book about one of the most important, worst-understood and evidence-free areas of public policy: how we move ourselves and our goods around the places where we live.
