ninme

Japanese Toilets culled from this Gizmodo entry, in which the following is pointed out:

This isn’t particularly new—in fact, it could be as old as the hills, if the hills were made in the ’90s. But there has never been a fancy Japanese toilet control panel I haven’t enjoyed looking at and this is certainly no exception. Even better, it’s just a small excerpt from a fantastic article on Wikipedia that details more about Japanese toilets and their Number 2 cultural obsession than any one person really needs to know.

And, via Ashton Kutcher and other celebs opt for massive CXT pick-up:

HOLLYWOOD COMMUNITY SHOCKED AS ACADEMY SNUBS KUTCHER

As the nominees for the Academy Awards were announced last week, favorite Ashton Kutcher failed to capture a Best Actor nomination, leaving the Hollywood community stunned. Kutcher’s inspiring performance in 2004’s “The Butterfly Effect” moved critics and audiences alike, and most observers believed Kutcher was a shoe-in for an Oscar nomination. “I can’t believe Jamie Foxx got a nomination for that ‘Ray’ movie but Ashton got completely ignored,” says New York Times critic Walter Henson. “It’s a slap in the face to any actor who pours out his soul on the big screen and touches a nation with his incredible talent.”

The autoblog article says he’s purchased a semi. uh huh.

And, another Sinfest.

A different sort of story about bravery and resourcefulness in the face of certain death:

Man peed way out of avalanche

In the Slovak Tatra mountains:

He said: “I was scooping the snow from above me and packing it down below the window, and then I peed on it to melt it. It was hard and now my kidneys and liver hurt. But I’m glad the beer I took on holiday turned out to be useful and I managed to get out of there.”

Seriously.

Sinfest - A comic strip he’s been sending me all day. This one’s funny, too. And this one I thought was hilarious.

A post on Slashdot refuting the usual BS that the US is no better than China, because we execute people, stifle protesters, arrest people joking about killing the president, et cetera and so on. The spelling’s kind of bad, but he’s generally right.

And a really long list of Inaccessible Sites Tested by Users of the Real-Time Testing System, which lists inaccessible sites in China. Which includes, oddly enough, marxism.com, which is owned by a squatter. One of them is Human Rights Watch which is probably a great defender of China, ironically. Lead story?

Iraq: Torture Continues at Hands of New Government

Iraqi security forces are committing systematic torture and other abuses against people in detention. A new Human Rights Watch report documents how unlawful arrest, long-term incommunicado detention, torture and other ill-treatment of detainees (including children) by Iraqi authorities have become routine and commonplace.

Way to root for the good guys.

Maybe it’s a new series?

Paul Graham - What you wished you’d known

Beware of bad models. Especially when they excuse laziness. When I was in high school I used to write “existentialist” short stories like ones I’d seen by famous writers. My stories didn’t have a lot of plot, but they were very deep. And they were less work to write than entertaining ones would have been. I should have known that was a danger sign. And in fact I found my stories pretty boring; what excited me was the idea of writing serious, intellectual stuff like the famous writers.

Now I have enough experience to realize that those famous writers actually sucked. Plenty of famous people do; in the short term, the quality of one’s work is only a small component of fame. In retrospect, I should have been less worried about doing something that seemed cool, and just done something I liked. That’s the actual road to coolness anyway.

(cough James Joyce cough)