Anil Dash – Fixing Facebook’s “Gaslighting” Of The Web

In a very good read, Anil points to browsers and says they should warn users when visiting Facebook as Badware:

Given that Facebook is consistently misleading users about the nature of web links that they visit and placing barriers to web sites being able to be visited through ordinary web links on their network, this seems an appropriate and necessary remedy for their behavior.

via Facebook is gaslighting the web. We can fix it. – Anil Dash.

Former Officer Peter Moskos On UC Davis & ‘Dumb-ass Training’

People don’t hate the police for fighting off aggressors or arresting law breakers. They do hate police for causing pain—be it by dog, fire house, Taser, or mace—to those who passively resist. And that’s what happened yesterday at U.C. Davis.

via The Washington Monthly – Ten Miles Square – Dumb-ass Training and the U.C. Davis Pepper Spray Incident: Thoughts From a Fromer Cop.

Open Letter To UC Davis Chancellor From A Faculty Member

In response to the events at UC Davis on November 18th, Nathan Brown wrote an open letter to UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi, calling for her resignation:

You may not order police to forcefully disperse student protesters peacefully protesting police brutality. You may not do so. It is not an option available to you as the Chancellor of a UC campus. That is why I am calling for your immediate resignation.

via Open Letter to Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi | UCDavis Bicycle Barricade.

Veggie Pizza

So, in a country where fertilised eggs are people and assembling burgers is a manufacturing job, and berries are better in the form of shoe leather, why not call a sugary fruit paste sauce that comes out of a can and is poured onto dough that comes out of a box, topped with cheese that’s spelt Cheez and comes out of a Whiz, a vegetable.

via Is pizza a vegetable? Well, Congress says so | Lizz Winstead | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.

Ripping Apart “300″

David Brin writes:

“300″ idolizes the same arrogant contempt for citizenship that eventually ruined classical Greece and Republican Rome, and that might bring the same fate to America.

via Move over, Frank Miller: or why the Occupy Wall Street kids are better than #$%! Spartans | Contrary Brin.

Generation Sell

Well, we’re all in showbiz now, walking on eggshells, relentlessly tending our customer base. We’re all selling something today, because even if we aren’t literally selling something [...], we’re always selling ourselves.

via The Entrepreneurial Generation – NYTimes.com.

Best Recommendation Letter Ever

Robert Oppenheimer on Richard Feynman:

He is by all odds the most brilliant young physicist here, and everyone knows this. He is a man of thoroughly engaging character and personality, extremely clear, extremely normal in all respects, and an excellent teacher with a warm feeling for physics in all its aspects. He has the best possible relations both with the theoretical people of whom he is one, and with the experimental people with whom he works in very close harmony.

via Letters of Note: “He is a second Dirac, only this time human.”.

Yearning Inspiration

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry:

If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.

via stdout.be | Getting it.

Beginners Are Often Smarter Than Geeks

Bingo:

Beginners are fearless, they jump right in feet first and are ready to work. Seasoned individuals tend to overthink problems…

via What You Do Know Can Hurt You – Learning Software Development – The Trendline.

Michael Pollan’s Rule #3 – Order the Small

Yikes:

At Burger King, what was a large in 1965—sixteen ounces—is now a small.

via Michael Pollan Counts Down His Favorite New Rules | Michael Pollan.