April 2013
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Here’s an ambiguous sentence for you: “Because of the agency’s oversight, the corporation’s behavior was sanctioned.” Does that mean, ‘Because the agency oversaw the company’s behavior, they imposed a penalty for some transgression’ or does it mean, ‘Because the agency was inattentive, they overlooked the misbehavior and gave it their approval by default’? We’ve stumbled into the looking-glass world of “contronyms”—words that are their own antonyms.
The Pointed T by Hara Design Institute:
From the website:
Architecture for Dogs, invented by architects and designers, is an extremely sincere collection of architecture and a new medium, which make dogs and their people happy. Dogs are people’s partners, living right beside them, but they are also animals that humans, through crossbreeding, have created in multitudes of breeds. Reexamining these close partners with fresh eyes may be a chance to reexamine both human beings themselves and the natural environment.
America’s First Freedom is a monthly magazine published by the NRA. Talking Points Memo has compiled the magazine’s last sixteen covers. And wow …
Check Out The Last 16 Covers Of The NRA’s ‘Pure News Magazine’ – TPM
The [bleeping] tax-prep lobby, that’s why:
[Maker of the tax software] Intuit has spent about $11.5 million on federal lobbying in the past five years — more than Apple or Amazon. Although the lobbying spans a range of issues, Intuit’s disclosures pointedly note that the company “opposes IRS government tax preparation.” … Roughly 25 million Americans used TurboTax last year, and a recent GAO analysis said the software accounted for more than half of individual returns filed electronically. TurboTax products and services made up 35 percent of Intuit’s $4.2 billion in total revenues last year.
In high school, Jill Lepore—now an Americanist at Harvard and a prolific contributor to the New Yorker—didn’t see the point of going to college. And if it hadn’t been for an army scholarship, she probably wouldn’t have. Although she was secretly a manic reader and writer, her reputation, perpetuated through the town newspaper and her troves of trophies, was that of a jock. She maintained this image throughout her first year at Tufts, where she participated in the Reserve Officer Training Corps, played sports, and failed her math classes. Then she received a letter in the mail that changed everything.
Americans have a begrudging, if not antagonistic, relationship with our largest corporations — unless, apparently, they sell technology. Granted, companies like Google and Microsoft interact with their customers in a more direct way than other megacoporations (in the course of a day I interact with Google — and in a very direct way, its brand — dozens of times. I’m far less aware of my interactions with Procter & Gamble). And with famous executives and relatively small product lines, they present a recognizable identity to a typical customer. Perhaps that’s why we’re more accepting of clever but vaguely apocalyptic jokes from profit-motivated organizations with revenues higher than many small countries.
But that doesn’t mean we should be. These are massive, and massively powerful, corporations, which have leverage over us in a way that they didn’t as upstart underdogs. They are companies to be monitored and regulated with vigilance, and regarded with skepticism; they’re inherently incapable of laughing with us because they are no longer in any way like us.
Whimsical jokes by the extremely powerful can (and should!) take on a sinister overtone (see: Army.mil’s “cats as soldiers” gag).
It’s Time for Tech Giants to Stop with the April Fools’ Jokes – BuzzFeed
He’s a pitcher, part yogi and part recluse. Impressively liberated from our opulent life-style, Sidd’s deciding about yoga—and his future in baseball.