science vs romance dot net

"43% believe a group of people randomly selected from the phone book would do a better job than the..."

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 13:40:05 -0800

“43% believe a group of people randomly selected from the phone book would do a better job than the current Congress. Thirty-eight percent (38%) disagree with that assessment, while another 19% are not sure.”

- I’d side with the 19% here, but acknowledge that this would be one heck of an experiment. Someone should make “Shadow Phonebook Congress” a reality show. [Rasmussen Reports™]

Late-pass / non-breaking news: A Separation is a very good movie...

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 09:39:00 -0800

Late-pass / non-breaking news: A Separation is a very good movie (that has finally started screening in Seattle).

I want to say that it’s like an incredibly engrossing extra-nuanced long ambiguous episode of Law & Order, but that doesn’t come across as complimentary as I mean it to be.

(A Separation a.k.a. Nader and Simin, a Separation poster via Internet Movie Poster Awards Gallery)

"At one point Mikovits […] was hiding out on a boat to avoid being served with papers from the..."

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 17:28:00 -0800

“At one point Mikovits […] was hiding out on a boat to avoid being served with papers from the Whittemore Peterson Institute.”

- Yet another high profile retraction from Science [#] complete with crazy upon crazy details that leave me longing for a Law & Order to rip this thing from the headlines. “Fallout From Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Retraction Is Far and Wide”[NYTimes]

“Let’s just call it Fancy...

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:46:00 -0800

[Flash 10 is required to watch video.]

“Let’s just call it Fancy Entourage.”

(via bestrooftalkever)

Jesse from In Treatment and Vince from Friday Night...

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 00:12:43 -0800

Jesse from In Treatment and Vince from Friday Night Lights stumble into a magic cave, pick up super powers, learn cool human tricks, and catch the whole thing on video. It gets a little too omega class by the end in service of destroying chunks of fake Seattle) and the found footage aspect was occasionally gimmicky but it sure made some of the high altitude shenanigans awfully fun and palm-sweat inducing.

(via Internet Movie Poster Awards Gallery)

"No doubt there are worse things than being young and male and unable to throw anything accurately..."

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 14:30:00 -0800

“No doubt there are worse things than being young and male and unable to throw anything accurately under any circumstances, but it did not always feel that way at the time.”

- Stephen Squibb, ”Late Patriot Football” [n 1]. Loving all of the post-Super Bowl deepthinkpieces. See also, an hour of Tom Brady having a sad that features a sprinting hug from Gisele Bundchen followed by a grief-induced Katy Perry neg [yahoo!]; Sascha Frere-Jones defending M.I.A.’s finger while disapproving of her apology [newyorker]; and Wesley Morris decoding Madonna’s halftime show [grantland].

Maps & Order. Now please animate this over 20...

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 11:28:58 -0800

Maps & Order. Now please animate this over 20 seasons?

(by very small array » That dark dirty city)

Gorgeous old long exposure photos of fireflies from Japan. (via...

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 17:24:40 -0800

Gorgeous old long exposure photos of fireflies from Japan. (via zefrank)

Return of fake spring.

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 15:03:32 -0800

Return of fake spring.

"I have been in meetings where people look down and notice my socks, and there is this universal..."

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 11:39:39 -0800

“I have been in meetings where people look down and notice my socks, and there is this universal sign, almost like a gang sign, where they nod and pull up their pant leg a little to show off their socks”

- Hunter Walk, YouTube gangbanger. In Silicon Valley, Socks Make the Tech Entrepreneur - NYTimes.com

Can’t help but hear this version whenever “Total...

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 02:42:00 -0800

Can’t help but hear this version whenever “Total Eclipse of the Heart” comes up to close out an evening with some last call ridiculous modern dance parody. (Total Eclipse of the Heart: Literal Video Version)

Drink monkey. (Taken with instagram)

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 01:14:51 -0800

Drink monkey. (Taken with instagram)

"They couldn’t even compete in the same Miss Universe pageant (a Trump franchise about as far..."

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 15:58:44 -0800

“They couldn’t even compete in the same Miss Universe pageant (a Trump franchise about as far removed from the Romney comfort zone as small talk or dancing).”

- Ana Marie Cox dissects the Trump endorsement. [guardian]

Thank you, photoshoppers. Much preferred to the onslaught...

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 21:08:07 -0800

Thank you, photoshoppers. Much preferred to the onslaught of Groundhog’s Day movie references.
(via Best Week Ever)

GPOYW: Hideout Polaroid, reading party after party.

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 22:50:01 -0800

GPOYW: Hideout Polaroid, reading party after party.

Regardless of stubbornness, the Republican primary election...

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 08:50:00 -0800

Regardless of stubbornness, the Republican primary election could last forever because of math.

Milch’s racetrack is a microcosm of late-capitalist America’s...

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:59:00 -0800

Milch’s racetrack is a microcosm of late-capitalist America’s death throes, the dark mirror of Deadwood’s exuberant robber-baron petri dish. —Matt Zoller Seitz on ‘Luck [New York Magazine]

You had me at hello.

Andy Baio’s eighth year of investigating the speed at...

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:35:39 -0800

Andy Baio’s eighth year of investigating the speed at which Oscar-nominated films leak onto the internet. Screener leaks are way down and camcorder leaks are less common (and/or less popular).

(graph from Pirating the Oscars 2012: Ten Years of Data - Waxy.org)

Despite their very limited successes, this kind of data makes you wonder what Hollywood is thinking with their increasing efforts to delay the availability of legal copies of films on Netflix — a new agreement will impose a 56 day delay in adding films to a queue [LATimes via appleoutsider/theloop] — some sort of bizarre effort to promote DVD sales.

"It became widely understood that a closeted student at Rutgers had committed suicide after video of..."

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 16:14:00 -0800

“It became widely understood that a closeted student at Rutgers had committed suicide after video of him having sex with a man was secretly shot and posted online. In fact, there was no posting, no observed sex, and no closet.”

- From Ian Parker’s long, revealing, story: “Tyler Clementi’s Suicide and Dharun Ravi’s Trial”. [The New Yorker]

The article really isn’t exactly about either of those things, and I’m sure that many people will read it very differently. For instance, I thought that it was sympathetic to both parties. But aside from the compelling and sad central narrative, there are just some completely phenomenal word choices throughout and it really demonstrates how people (college students) live publicly now without being showy (I’d barely realized how much was sourced from digital communications until there comes a jarring part in the story when he writes: “It’s not known if they talked—there is no electronic record.”).

twenty minutes in, when the Jack Russell looks at the camera...

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:39:42 -0800

twenty minutes in, when the Jack Russell looks at the camera and ‘says’ this … you LOL instead of killing yourself. Now THAT’s movie magic.

(Gabe Liedman considers the overlooked Oscars [;Videogum])