Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened — as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding — she studied and remembered every moment. This is a powerful story about how our brains define us and connect us to the world and to one another.
All I can say is, “What the f*ck?”:
Up next, machine guns mounted to this thing.
The Billboard Liberation Front is at it again:
Gotta love Japan-Stevie!
A group of LA-based actors and comedians (including veterans of Second City and the Daily Show) has founded an organization called The Public Service Administration (love the logo!).
They’re producing videos as a YouTube user called Election08. Here’s this week’s episode, already a classic:
Don’t forget to also check out their excellent will.i.am parody featuring John McCain called john.he.is.
A commenter named DCLaw1 over at Glenn Greenwald’s place phrases the question that I didn’t even know was on my mind until I read it:
I have always found it very curious that one of the following, but not the other, is illegal:
(a) Two people have sex, one of them gets paid for it;
(b) Two (or more) people have sex, all of them get paid for it, and it is videotaped and sold to third parties as a commodity.
I have yet to hear a convincing argument why this difference makes any actual sense.
I gotta be honest: I started to write something scathing and satirical. But really, just go to Amazon.com. It’s out of stock, you can’t buy one– but the comments, they’re priceless. And for reasons I cannot even begin to comprehend or explain, every single item that comes up under the “Customers Who Bought Items Like This Also Bought…” section? Is an L. Ron Hubbard text on Scientology. None of his science fiction titles, just Scientology books. The mind, it fairly boggles.
LOLcats meets the Presidential campaign! Hilarity ensues:
Apparently, there is such a thing as pretonic schwa elision!
It’s what turns “potato” into “ptato!”
I love me some Language Log!
Now, go on – pretonically elide that ə!