Category: Words

Scandal! A publisher has been paying a media outlet for consideration in a soft-news segment about their product category!

I mean, sure, it’s profoundly unethical, especially given that the “punters” aren’t told about the fees. This all began with co-op ads, where a retailer and a manufacturer split advertising costs– say, a music publisher giving out posters to a record store, or a beer distributor giving out neon signs– and moved into things like book publishers paying Borders a million dollars to put a particular item at the front of the store. Or, say, Unwrapped, on the Food Network, where the food manufacturers actually provide the vast majority of the show’s footage, (and likely the entire production budget).

Yay ethics! Bring on the B-Roll! Bring out the payola! I want me some kickbacks!

Random House is having an essay contest for people between 20 and 29. They plan to publish twenty-something essays by twenty-something people. Get it? 20×20.

My reading material right now is How to Grill by Steven Raichlen, author of “The Barbecue! Bible” and other fire-oriented cookbooks, author of a BBQ blog and host of a TV show called BBQ University.

This was the cookbook we made North-Carolina-style pulled pork shoulder from, and I have to say he gets it right– it was the best pork shoulder I’d had in years.

It’s hard being a web developer– you make one tiny mistake and it’s obvious. Like, say, choosing CFM and Windows for a search system on a heavily-trafficked website like MySpace. Oh well, guess search is broken for you. Or forgetting to set the DNS up properly, and leaving one-email.org pointing to the Yahoo! Small Business Hosting “In Progress” default page, instead of www.one-email.org, like it’s supposed to– and then handing out hundreds of flyers and t-shirts at an expensive conference, with the wrong URL.

Oops.

Turns out the right-wing spam is the result of a Windows-infecting virus. Obviously, the worst aspects of politics have now gotten in bed with the worst aspects of the internet. Should’ve seen it coming.

I was wondering about this awhile ago and Federico clued me in: the singular of “tamales” is “tamal.”

Also, the etymology of the word “Bogart” used to mean “to keep selfishly” or “to avoid sharing,” was originally applied to joints and cigarettes, after Humphrey Bogart’s style of leaving a cigarette hanging from his mouth.

Since last week I’ve been getting a lot of junk mail in German advocating, as nearly as I can tell, that Turkey should not be allowed into the EU, and reminding everyone of the Armenian genocide of 1915. The messages mix links to Der Spiegel and other reputable sources with links to the far-right NPD.

I honestly don’t have an opinion about Turkey’s membership in the EU, at least not a very informed one. But this sort of campaign strikes me as unseemly and likely to muddy the debate: if all opposition to Turkey is far-right xenophobia, then there won’t be any legitimate discussion of Turkey’s human rights record and civil procedures, much less the immigration effects of opening the borders.

Number of f-bombs in Deadwood

For obvious reasons, I have this song stuck in my head today.

So after my earlier post about the warning signs of creeping totalitarianism, I was thinking about other things that have warning signs:

• Bogus science
• Youth violence
• Predatory Lending
• Pollution
• Bad poetry contests
• Satanism
• Masturbation
• Becoming a Jehova’s Witness

God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. So, God didn’t make Steve? Who is Steve, then, if he was not made by God?

Also: A Canadian forgets his roots.