Posts from — June 2009

Children’s Hospital is a series of web shorts made by Rob Corddry last year. Somehow I missed this until recently, but it’s one of my favorite things I’ve seen in a while. It’s sorta a parody of Grey’s Anatomy and similar shows, though it doesn’t rely on any knowledge of those. There are 10 5-minute episodes, all available free on the site. The show is horribly inappropriate, not safe for work, etc. If you like Arrested Development, I think that this has a bit of a similar sensibility (some of you know how huge a compliment that is).

If you aren’t convinced, you can watch the (potentially NSFW) trailer, narrated by Stephen Colbert, but you should really just skip that and watch the show.

If you’re into comedy, you’ll recognize a lot of the actors in this, too.

Why are you still reading?!

This banner at a conference for advocates of English-only education has a slight problem…

(conference is spelled wrong)

Which of course reminds me of this:

Pat Buchanan is in the first picture, btw.

It’s Summer travel season, so I figure now’s a good time to talk about podcasts in case you’re in the mood to try something new.

I recently listened to this episode of WNYC’s Radiolab about randomness (or stochasticity, for those who prefer bigger words). Don’t be scared off by the seemingly-esoteric subject-matter, it’s really not a technical podcast. It talks about unlikely events, such as the same person winning the lottery twice, random events such as coin flips, and randomness in sports. I’ve only listened to this episode, but I enjoyed it enough that I’m subscribed. Give it a try if you like learning surprising things.

(via kottke)

In my previous post on the subject, I focused on an op-ed by Charles Krauthammer criticizing Obama for not loudly siding with the demonstrators. Others voicing similar opinions include Eric Cantor, and John McCain.

Here are some notable people calling out this foolish criticism:
George Will

Henry Kissinger

Foreign policy was the top reason I voted for Obama, actually, and watching McCain talk about this, I’m glad.

I heard part of this song on a recent episode of Fresh Air. It’s Don’t Stop Believing from the TV show Glee. I haven’t actually seen the show at all, but I like the energy of this interpretation:

Don’t worry, I won’t be featuring High School Musical any time soon.

Also, Nick Pintera sings both the male and female parts of this disturbingly well:

This was in my head for at least a day and a half last week.

Watching videos like this of conflict between demonstration crowds in Iran and police makes me think about the way herds of animals behave in nature. That sentence didn’t quite come out as well as I’d like: just to be clear, I’m not saying that either the demonstrators or police are animals or sub-human, just that the group behavior seems analogous. The police focus on people on the edges, often the weaker members of the herd. Meanwhile, the strength of the crowd is its size: the odds of any one individual being hurt or killed are low, but the odds that someone will be hurt or killed are quite high. Even the movement of the crowds (see the video link above) really looked like footage of a herd being harassed by a predator.

Here’s video of the herd winning:

I’m not sure if you should watch this video. I found it terrifying, but I’m glad I’ve seen it for some reason. Neda Soltani was a demonstrator in Tehran who, according to some reports, was a year older than me. She was shot by a Basij who was on a motorcycle. The video shows the scene immediately after she’d been shot, as she dies on the ground. She’s become increasingly iconic of the violence in the last few days.

The name Neda means “voice” (or “a calling ” or “a divine calling”, I’ve read) in Farsi.

In a previous post, I wrote that foreign embassies in Tehran have been treating the wounded demonstrators. I’ve now read from some sources that this may not be the case (e.g. the UK has denied it). I’ve corrected the post to point out that this was a rumor.

A NY Googler goes to Times Square and asks people what a browser is. 8% of them knew:

It’s easy to forget that I live in a bubble.

John Hodgman gave a great 14-minute speech, framing the world into jocks vs. nerds and poking fun at the President. Enjoy: