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[…] Perhaps Gladwell’s intellectual compromises are neither commercial nor unintentional but rather a necessary outgrowth of his higher calling: to explore the secret workings of the world and impart the resulting data to its self-appointed stewards, the titans of industry. This conclusion, if true, may resolve many of the most puzzling incongruities riddling Gladwell’s articles: his continued defense of the pharmaceutical industry even as he advocates for single-payer healthcare; his refusal to indict the financial sector’s rigged “star system” as the engine of corruption that it is; the meticulous bleaching of his own prose so that he’s whitewashed out any real context, any framework in which wars and economic collapses can actually be understood as wars and economic collapses rather than simulations or malfunctions; his near total avoidance of academic thought that does not base its findings on things observed in labs (with the exception of Carl Jung, whose legacy he reduces to the popularization of personality tests); his coyness about politics; and most memorably, his irritating, unrelenting readability.
Fifteen abandoned theatres.

(Via Neatorama.)

Fifteen abandoned theatres.

(Via Neatorama.)

Richard Dawkins responds to a rebuke about his rhetorical style.

(Via Roger Ebert.)

Always capitalize Satan. You don’t want to get dead goats from those people.
Toothpaste for Dinner.



Prisoner’s daily ration, Strangeways Prison, Manchester 1890.




(Via claytoncubitt.)

Prisoner’s daily ration, Strangeways Prison, Manchester 1890.

(Via claytoncubitt.)

Stewart Lee talks about political correctness.

Untitled, Bayswater, Perth, by Alistair Dickinson.

Untitled, Bayswater, Perth, by Alistair Dickinson.

(The cafe owners often bring their little one-year old girl with them, who sometimes plays with the register while standing on a crate. One day while I’m working on something else a few feet away, she’s doing this as a customer approaches.)

Customer: “I’d like to order a sandwich to go.”

Me: “Sure, I’ll be there in one minute. Let me just wash my hands.”

Customer: “Yeah, but she can take my order now!” *points to the little girl*

Me: “She’s just playing. She can’t actually ring you up.”

Customer: *blank stare*

Me: “She’s one.”

Customer: *heavy sigh*

Toddler: “Cheese?”

El Caminito del Rey is a walkway, now fallen into disrepair, pinned along the steep walls of a narrow gorge in El Chorro, near Álora in Málaga, Spain.  And it’s frickin’ terrifying.

On the train I was overjoyed to overhear a conversation between three teenage boys (maybe thirteen, fourteen?) in school uniform with uniformly terrible hair.

Boy 1: Did youse do the assignment?

Boy 2: Yeah

Boy 1: Did youse do first or third person?

Boy3: Did anyone do second?

Boy1: No one does second. (points to Boy 2) So what did you do?

Boy 2: First. Wait. No. Third. Wait. What’s the difference again?

Boy 1: First is me talking to you, second is you talking to me (points to Boy 3) third is him just talking and he never fuckin’ shuts up.

Cable cars at Mount Hua in Shaanxi Province, China.

(Via TYWKOIWDBI.)

Cable cars at Mount Hua in Shaanxi Province, China.

(Via TYWKOIWDBI.)

To describe more than one octopus, use sixteentopus, twentyfourtopus, thirtytwotopus, and so on.
With its hundredth post, glorious one-joke blog Monkey Punch Dinosaur finally comes to an end.  Creator Adam Ford reflects on his creation, and offers a slideshow of all hundred punches.

With its hundredth post, glorious one-joke blog Monkey Punch Dinosaur finally comes to an end.  Creator Adam Ford reflects on his creation, and offers a slideshow of all hundred punches.