• On Life and Love

    Weekly Linkage

    There’s a bit of everything in week’s internet cruising: The higher-education bubble (continued): Students are drowning in debt – How's this for ridiculous: student-loan debt now surpasses credit-card debt. Literary Agent – Traditional Versus Self-Publishing – Ted … – Amanda Hocking and Barry Eisler on their strategies of traditional- and self-publishing. 10 Tips on Growing Your Garden Without Growing Your Expenses – Given my gardening bug this year, this is a handy read. On Digital Identity, Technology Dependents, and Death – Much like the comprehensive backup solution I linked to so long ago, this is a great guide for getting started with digital identity management. 1Password is also great on…

  • On Life and Love

    Weekly Linkage: The Long Edition

    At some point in the last 2 weeks, I had 0 unread items in Google Reader. It was a short-lived, joyous experience, but this is the result of my web branching: HCG Diet Dangers: Is Fast Weight Loss Worth the Risk? – MSN Health & Fitness – Healthy Living – "But the so-called hCG diet is either a weight-loss miracle or a dangerous fraud, depending on who's talking. The plan combines drops or injections of hCG, a pregnancy hormone, with just 500 calories a day." I don't even have words for how stupid this sounds. And how unhealthy. "Yeah, I'm going to shoot up with a hormone and engage in…

  • On Life and Love

    Weekly Linkage: Healthcare, Midnight Deployments, and Markov Chaining

    I’ve been all over The Incidental Economist lately, and it’s really hard not to link to every one of their posts that I can make heads or tails of. They’re really prolific by my standards, though, which means it’s a struggle to keep their posts from falling off the 30-day cut-off in Google Reader. Simply put: Marginal cost/benefit – "You’ll consume as much health care as you think worth it for the transaction price (your copayment if you’re insured). The lower the price, the more you’ll consume. You’ll keep using health services until the marginal benefit falls below the price you pay." I'm not sure I agree that people will…

  • On Life and Love

    Weekly Linkage: Passports, Robots, and Monopoly

    This week’s internet cruising: No Moods, Ads or Cutesy Fucking Icons (Re-reloaded) » Extraordinary Claims – Dust off your scientific hats for this one. Watts does an interesting analysis of the responses to a paper showing statistically significant evidence of precognition. Other folks apparently jumped all over the precog article with some borderline dishonest critiques, which Watts chews on. The “…the fuck…” exercise. « intangible.ca – Hear, hear. "Think of the last time you had to write an About Us page. Or a FAQ. Or craft an elevator pitch. The big challenge is coming up with a clear, engaging, and succinct description of your project." Change in passport language is…

  • On Life and Love

    Weekly Linkage: the TSA, Microwaves, and “Dot Dot Dot”

    This week’s internet cruising: Why You Should Never Search For Free WordPress Themes in Google or Anywhere Else – WordPress, Multisite and BuddyPress plugins, themes, news and help – WPMU.org – I'm not at all surprised by the hackery going on in free WordPress themes. YouTube – Brick in a washing machine – I've always wanted to do this! Twitter’s Response to WikiLeaks Subpoena Should Be the Industry Standard | Threat Level | Wired.com – "Twitter introduced a new feature last month without telling anyone about it, and the rest of the tech world should take note and come up with its own version of it Twitter beta-tested a spine."…