Happy New Year!

How to change the world in 3 easy steps

“Something brilliant and historic is already underway, and our message to the Obamas, Camerons and Merkels of this world is that it’s already happening without them, and they need to support and enable it, but even if they do nothing, it will continue to grow, because it’s the future.”

Now, on to a "Math" Problem....

What does your Zipcode tell you about your community?

VERY Interesting to see the change in industries and companies by market cap:

JG: OMG, Can someone explain to me WTF is supposed to be going on in this commercial?

JG: Actual quote heard at recent party:

Woman comes into kitchen, cuts herself a piece of cheesecake and says  "I don't normally eat cheesecake, but, I do when I'm at a party."

The thought arises: what else is on the menu? How far does this go? Does it apply to food only? What else does she not normally do, that she would do if at a party?

JG: I'm ok with this as they seem made for each other.

JG: Watch out where the huskies go and don't you eat that Yellow snow! (Too obscure?)

JG: Good to know! I can never get enough skanky pork.

JG: well, it's not like saying 'shit' 162 times, but...

Raisin is the Past Tense of Currant

JG: "Impossible" Penrose triangle, rendered in 3-D. The basis for some of Escher's work, here, here and here.

JG: Obligatory...but too obscure?

First Peanuts comic  Peanuts Begins

JG: It would appear I haven't wasted those 30 years.

• I am now convinced that theoretical physics is actually philosophy.
• I believe there is no philosophical high-road in science, with epistemological signposts. No, we are in a jungle and find our way by trial and error, building our road behind us as we proceed. We do not find signposts at crossroads, but our own scouts erect them, to help the rest.

Max Born

JG: Note to current leaders in their race to the bottom:

Too Little, Too Late

By the time COP-21’s attendees convened in Paris, it was probably already too late to keep global climate change from spinning completely out of control. The embarrassingly feeble agreement that came out of that event, though, has guaranteed that nothing significant will be done. The hard political and economic realities that made any actual cut in greenhouse gas emissions all but unthinkable are just layers of icing on the cake, part of the predicament of our time—a predicament that defines the words “too little, too late” as our basic approach to the future looming up ahead of us.

JG: I'm pleased to say that those adults I spent time with at parties and family/friends get-togethers, as well as my fiance and I, did not spend the time "staring into screens" together. We adults had real conversations, interactions and relationships.
The kids? Oh, they were glued to 'em.
The Christmas Spirit Of Staring Into Screens Together
“Nothing puts me in the Christmas spirit more than sitting down on the couch with my parents and siblings, turning on the TV, and then proceeding to either look at the screen or gaze down into my glowing tablet display for hours on end,” 

JG: Life, it seems, is not without its touch of irony:

Man dies after walking off a cliff in San Diego while distracted by electronic device

A man who was paying too much attention to his electronic device accidentally walked off the edge of a cliff in San Diego and fell 60 feet to his death, according to lifeguards.


Did you know:  It's Going to be okay.

Best Christmas Wishes

Something to read in between cleaning our guns:

5 Mind-Blowing Facts Nobody Told You About Guns
After every mass shooting, the gun debate splits into two camps: One side says it easily could have been avoided if these maniacs weren't allowed to have guns; the other says it easily could have been avoided if each innocent victim had only gone through their daily lives in cover formation, armed like the space marines entering the giant murder womb in Aliens.
And that's pretty much the entire gun control debate, as far as the mainstream media are willing to cover. And that is a shame, because it leaves out all of the most interesting parts. Trust us, the longer you look into this, the weirder it gets.

5 Dumbest Things People Are Getting Mad About This Christmas

The Oatmeal:

Looking for that "Purrfect Gift"?

GIFs, IoCrap, The BobCats, Complete DoucheCopter, Yale Repeals 1st Amendment & Jon "Trump" Stewart

IoT: The Internet of Things Crap
Cringley nailed it in early 2014:
 The idea is very simple: put intelligence in every device and connect them all together on the Internet. And the idea behind the idea is even simpler: the everything is what we’ll first have to throw away. Because that’s the only way the Internet of Everything can work.

Every network can be hacked, which is the other reason why it is still the Internet of Crap.

JG: One of the comments I liked most: "I don't care what my toaster has to say."

IoT leads to:
Won't Someone Think About the Children?
Mom, My Barbie Needs A Better Firewall
Earlier this year, we noted that Barbie had received a face lift for the internet of things age. Hello Barbie is able to take commands from your kids, but also connects to your home Wi-Fi network to shovel your children's conversations to the cloud -- purportedly to improve Barbie's voice recognition technology. At the time, groups like the Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood complained that monetizing the ramblings of toddlers was a line that shouldn't be crossed, given that kids would no longer be talking to a doll, they'd be "talking directly to a toy conglomerate whose only interest in them is financial."

The Bobcats  (click to enlarge)

JG: Personally, I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't read it but...
here you go, 
A Complete DoucheCopter:
Law Professor: ISIS Is, Like, Totally Scary, So Let's Do Away With The First Amendment
Law professor Eric Posner is no fan of the First Amendment. Never has been. Back in 2012, he argued that Americans basically need to get over the First Amendment because free speech upsets people. Earlier this year, he argued for restricting the speech of college students because students are children who don't deserve free speech. A few months ago, he also argued that the US should adopt a "right to be forgotten," because sometimes it's better to make speech disappear entirely. 

So it comes as little surprise that he's now arguing that we should just dump the First Amendment,because ISIS is, like, super scary, yo.

Posner: Americans need to learn that the rest of the world—and not just Muslims—see no sense in the First Amendment. Even other Western nations take a more circumspect position on freedom of expression than we do, realizing that often free speech must yield to other values and the need for order. 

And the people who would support him:

FuckFace Von Clownstick
Trump’s uncomfortable American legacy
The problem with U.S. Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump’s extreme proposal to temporarily limit the entry of Muslims into the United States is not that it reflects an aberrant, occasional fringe position that threatens one minority group. It reveals a much more uncomfortable fact: Trump’s comments are part of a long tradition of the white Christian majority’s isolating, mistreating and making scapegoats of groups that are perceived as encroaching on and threatening its hegemonic privileges.



And Jon Stewart Trumps it all: