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"The “Santa industry” is a particularly good one to be in if you’re a portly old white man, apparently. A company called Thumbtack did a study of the business of being Santa Claus and found that it’s a pretty sweet deal a lot of the time. Of the 169 Santas that Thumbtack interviewed, the average hourly rate was a hefty $137.50. That’s not bad for a job that solely involves sitting down and chuckling."
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PHOTO OF THE DAY: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie addresses the 2012 Republican Presidential Candidates Forum luncheon honoring Amb. Sam Fox, hosted by the Republican Jewish Coalition, on Wednesday in Washington. (PHOTO: Cliff Owen/AP)
Fixed that for you.
Seriously though, can we talk about how fat that guy is?
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It turns out there are a lot of similarities between the way spammers evolve their approaches to avoid filters and the way the HIV virus is constantly mutating,” according to the post on Microsoft Research’s blog.
In fact, the Microsoft Researchers, using PhyloD with the aid of that company’s high performance computing center, were able to process a year’s worth of data in a matter of days, resulting in the discovery of six times as many possible attack points on the HIV virus has had previously been identified.
"Microsoft Research: Spammers Act Just Like HIV Virus In Avoiding Filters | threatpost
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"So there was a MASSIVE police presence for what was supposed to be another encampment in Military Park. Only a few people end up showing up to occupy. Meanwhile, because all of the police are gathered by the park, there is a crime spree around the rest of Newark. Two shootings (one fatal). Also unrelated, someone stole a Hummer then drove it through the front of a real estate office, hooked up their safe and towed it away. It was like a mission in Vice City. There was also other random misc petty crime (more than normal). The police chief starts getting angrier and angrier because he’s wasting all of his manpower at Military Park. Finally he finds the head of the movement and is like, “Look, this isn’t like occupying other cities. We’re here for your protection, not for the protection of the park or other citizens. Right now, everything is going to shit around the rest of the city. We’re leaving. It’s dark and you’re in Newark. I don’t recommend you spend the night here for your own safety. Good Luck.” And then all of the cops take off. Needless to say, by morning Occupy Newark was pretty much disbanded…"
A friend’s description of Occupy Newark
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"Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning do to do afterward."
Kurt Vonnegut
I feel like I’m seeing a lot of high-and-mightyism when it comes to internet humor/memes/general jacknapery on the LOLTubes recently. How dare you make light of v.v.important things such as presidential debates/pepper spray/[insert most recent outrageous soul-sucking thing]?
This is the only response necessary.
(via aatombomb)
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"Here’s looking at you, kid."
Rick Blaine says gently to Ilsa Lund at the end of Casablanca. It’s one of the most tender, heartbreaking, and quoted lines from the classic film—and according to Den of Geek, “legend has it that this is something Bogart used to say to Bergman as he taught her to play poker in between takes on set. It was never in the original script at all.” Keep reading … (via utnereader)
Interesting piece on Utne on “breaking script” - both in movies and in real life. The better takeaway from that piece is actually from clinical hypnotist (?) Kristine Madera:
Once you pay attention to the social scripts, they become so obvious that you wonder how you participated without yawning or bursting out laughing. The most common one, which most people have toyed around with, is the ubiquitous, “How are you?”
It’s such a script that it’s actually a joke, and yet—it still flusters people to answer anything but a version of “fine,” “doing good,” or “okay.” Declaring yourself to be fabulous, or verbally vomiting your aches and pains all over the questioner, throws the whole dance into disarray.
Once you identify how much of the daily back-and-forth is prefabricated like a cheap house, you can start to strip it away. I refuse to talk about what day of the week it is (“Ugh, Monday”, “Wednesday - almost the weekend”, “Happy Friday”) in the context of constantly mourning/celebrating the ebb and flow of the workweek.
Or perhaps this just makes me a jerk.
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It’s proved impossible for me to get this shot of former Philadelphia Police Cpt. Ray Lewis being arrested, published anywhere. I was adamantly rebuffed by the Philadelphia Inquirer, NYT, local NY papers, and Newsweek, before even looking at the photograph. One of the only published photos of this paradoxical and intense event is located here at the NYC Observer:
http://www.observer.com/2011/11/former-philadelphia-police-captain-ray-lewis-arrested-ows/
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"I was there to take down the names of people who were arrested… As I’m standing there, some African-American woman goes up to a police officer and says, ‘I need to get in. My daughter’s there. I want to know if she’s OK.’ And he said, ‘Move on, lady.’ And they kept pushing with their sticks, pushing back. And she was crying. And all of a sudden, out of nowhere, he throws her to the ground and starts hitting her in the head,” says Smith. “I walk over, and I say, ‘Look, cuff her if she’s done something, but you don’t need to do that.’ And he said, ‘Lady, do you want to get arrested?’ And I said, ‘Do you see my hat? I’m here as a legal observer.’ He said, ‘You want to get arrested?’ And he pushed me up against the wall."
Retired New York Supreme Court Judge Karen Smith, working as a legal observer after the raids on Zucotti Park this Tuesday, via Paramilitary Policing of Occupy Wall Street: Excessive Use of Force amidst the New Military Urbanism (via seriouslyamerica)
(via felixsalmon)
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"Because it’s so easy to measure things like impressions and click-through rates, the online ad industry has missed the real power that advertising can have, and its practitioners tend to sneer at old-media ad money as being largely wasted, in contrast to the carefully quantified campaigns one sees online"
The future of online advertising | Felix Salmon
Must read post from Felix Salmon. So much great stuff in here.
Bubbled up by Percolate
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"David Temkin, the head of mobile for AOL, told paidContent that mobile ads running on AOL’s 30 free apps and 20 mobile web sites do not yet pay the way for these mobile content forays. But mobile is still profitable anyway, because of AOL has a number of deals with carriers in the U.S., signed years ago, to link up its AIM instant messenger service with the carriers’ text messaging services."
I’d be curious to see exactly what percentage of AOL’s revenue is legacy based - SMS contracts, dial-up subscribers, etc…
AOL Has A Profitable Mobile Business, But It’s Not Because Of Apps Or Ads | paidContent
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View high resolution
Interesting to overlay this with other maps. Check out the solid line through Nevada and Utah - aligns exactly with Route 15. Same wiht Rt 80 and 90. Also aligns spot on with population density. Kind of another way of showing how ubiquitous McDonalds is.
(via copyranter: Here’s a map of every McDonald’s in America.)
Bubbled up by Percolate
Theme: Linear by Peter Vidani
